"KEEP ONLY UNTO HER." (AUSTRALASIAN.)

Waikato Times, Volume IV, Issue 190, 29 July 1873, Page 2

" KEEP ONLY UNTO HER." (AUSTRALASIAN.)

Polygamy lias frequently been put forward of late by thoughtless and impulsive writers as a cure for some of theills men suffer at the hamls of their wires. It has been argued with a certain amount of speciousness and plausibility, that the lule condciining men to monogamy is false in principle and unnatural m practice; that we should be allowod to go on adding wife to wife as we do t>ur other treasures, till we get one to suit; that the relationship brought about by marriage is a purely voluntary one, and that it is tyrannical of the State to step in and arbitrarily restrict those who are willing and anxiows to renew their bon I to society ; and that the women themselves who arenext to us the most interested in the matter, would, from the increased value of their hearts and hands in the matrimonial market, if the question were properly put beforothem, be equally ready to accept the change. Wo own that at the first blush there is something very captivating in the arguments in favour of polygamy. Jfo doubt we do very often get ill suited in choosing a wife, and the mind in such a case is apt to brood with discontent oa the present system, and to dwell with a fond desire on the prospect of relief held nut by a conjugal variety. Even when we are not absolutely ill-suited, there are tunes when, the monotony and sameness of the constant companionship of one woman, however dear and amiable r weigh upon our spirits, and cause U 3 to sigh over our lot, when contrasted with tliat of our polygamous brethren of the older civilisations. On the face of it, the relief appears great, the variety charming ; the mind is irresistibly carried away by sweet visions of troops of happy wives vying with one another as to who should minister first to the wants of a universally boloved husband, and we cannot wonder at the hold the idea has taken on the minds of the unreflesting. But precisely because the arguments in favour of a. i phuality of wives are so charming, they are apt to lead the judgment astray, and there is all the more reason why the question should be discussed apart from feeling, in a cool,. dispassionate, and philosophic manner, by those who are able to give a judical opinion on the subject. We have no desire to check enthusiasm or crush youthful ardour. "W, feel deeply lor the sufferings that would induce men to see* relief in the plural household, but we are bound to tell them' plainly that this object is- unattainable,, and that even if they could succeed, they would be among the first to lament their good fortune. Married men have many advantages in. a social point of view, that would be forfeited if they were once liable to* become the prey of designing woman. In society they can now do as they like. They excite no ill-feeling if they prefer a quiet game of whist to dancing in a crowded room. Some men would much rather not dance; there are men who consider an immunity from dancing as cheaply purchased by a weak submission to the worst one wife can do, and this immunity they gain by marriage. After m man is married for some time, he looks upon his freedom from dancing as a sort of birthright that he would fight for, but if there were an unhmted liability to matrimony, »uch gentle pressure would be brought to bear that he would never feel himself secure for a single dance again, and the whist in which his soul delights would receive its death blow. The pleasure of possession is not at all to W compared tothat of imagination : possession cloys, imagination never. It is nice for a morned man to sit in a room full of girls, and surveying them at the leisure his poiition allows, picture to himself the qualities in each that would endear beir to him as a wife. He can talk to them and enjoy himself with a perfect freedom and absence of restraint that the bachelor is utterly ignorant of. Lovely young girls willl wait on a married man, and pay attentions to him that they would expect a bachelor to pa} to them. We are veterans ; we have dared and done ; we have shown our devotion to the sex in tho past, and it is meet that we should reap our reward at the bauds of lovely woman. But suppose we wore marriageable married men'; suppose that polygamy became the law of the land ;. grant the boon and plurality of wives — and what, we ask, would be then our position ? We would simply be the most helpless, defenceless, unhappy lot of wretches in the world. There is no use in talking of the Turk or the Hindoo. In the land of the Turk or Hindoo women are reared to habits of obedience from their infancy ; they are kept in subjection ; they are not allowed to show their faces. With us, women are "not — will not, in. fact — be kept in subjection. They are, allowed — they will not be restrained from showing their faces, and they feel no shame in. being looked at. They promise obedience once in their lives, but have ne?er been, know nto pay it. To the tender mercies of these beauteous beings, who know not obedience, who will not be kept mi subjection, who have no shame ia uncovering their faces in public, and whose minds are enlightened by a constant contact with ours, married men would be thrown under a polygamous system. We had once married, they would argue with the natural sagacity of their sex, and what so likely as that we might be induced to marry again ? We would be tracked down like the wounded deer, we would beas easily caught as the hobbled horse, we would be as little able to fly from our natural enemies as a bird with clipped wings. How peculiarly unpleasant, too, it would be to carry on flirtations in the presence of a wife or wives T Now wives do not object ia the least te seeing their husbands carrjy ing on with any number of girls in a ball room. They rather like it if it does not go too far. It keeps us out of what in their care for us they call harm's way. Beiidea they are pleased to think that younger and prettier women than themselves see enough in their husbands to make it worth their while to flirt with them ; but once allow the possibility that the girl we flirt with may be au rival, may supplant them in our affections, and reign as the last new favourite, and gaod-bye to the sweets of social intercourse. A great deal of amusement can be extracted from a room full of fresh young girls by a. married man of a disciplined mind and a habit of observation. They are vice to louk at, agreeable to chat to, pleasant to flirt with. A married man can forget the domestic worries when surrounded by a bevy of young maidens, who, unlike the wife, show him only the agreeable side of their characters. He knows that each one, in all probability, has faults that she keeps carefully hid from view, but as they are notking to him he does not inquire into them. He is blind to the blemishes ; he sees, and only wants to see, the bright side, and he leaves the flaws to the future husband. If they oniy woa't ask him to dance he can be completely happy in their society. Are we to exchange this delightful intercourse, this blessed retreat to which any man with a large circle of friends can. fly, this calm enjoyment of the bright side of woman, for the visionary advantages of the potygainie thaory ? Which would be pleasanter for a man ot a refined mmd — a room full of maidens, who could only regard him with Ibe eye of friendship, and whose most charming allurements would, therefore, be not only perfectly harmless, but even welcome, or a room- full of wives, with all of whose failings he was only too familiar. Polygamy sparingly indulged in would no doubt be an estimable advantage m some cases ; houses would be rendered habitable, husbands cheered, and, to speak ftsgtii cally, the flowers in the garden of life made to bu&bn agim. But the dangers and. difficulties in the way of a change ate so great that we are unwillingly compelled te» admonish those in possession of one wife whom they do know, to abandon all thoughts of two or more whom they do not, and in w ords with which they are no doubt painfully familiar, "■ forsaking all others, keep only unto her. "

An Atrociovs Hamt. — There is a habit peculiar to man y walkers, which. Punch, some year* ago, touched upon satirically, but which seems to have survived the jester's ridiculd. It is tb»t custom of stopping friends in the street, to whom we hare nothing whatever to communicate, but whom we embnrass for no other purpose than, simply to show our friendship. Jones meets bin friend Smith, whom he has met. in nearly the same locality bnt a few hours before. During that interval it is highly probable that no event of any importance to Smith, nor indeed to Jones, which by a friendly construction Jones could imagine Smith to be interested in, lias occurred, or is likely to occur. Yet both gentlemen stop, and shake hands earnestly. " Well, how goes it?" remarks Smith, with a vague hope that something may have happened. " So, so," replies the eloquent Jones, feeling intuitively the deep vacuity of his friend answering to his own. A pause ensues, in wliicli botli "cntlempn regard each other with an imbecile smile and a fervent pressure of the band. Smithdraws a long breath and looks up the street ; Jones sighs heavily and gazes down the btreet. Another pause, in which both gentlemen disengage their respective linnds and glance anxiously around for some conventional avenue of escape Fmnlh Smith (with a sudden a.«*um] tion of having forgotten an important engagement) ejaculates, "Well, I must be off* — n remark instantly echoed by the voluble Jones, and these gentlemen separate, only to repent their miserable formula the next. day. In the above example, I have compassionately shortened the usual leavetaking, which, in unskilful bands, may be protracted to a length which I shudder to recall. I ha\c sometimes, when anactne participant in these atrocious transact ion?, lingered 111 the hope of faying something natural to- my ftirnd (feeling that he, too, was groping in the maay lib\rmths of Ins mind for a like expression) until I have felt that ne ought to have been separated by a policeman. It i» astonishing how far the most wretched joke will go in theseemergencics, and how it will, as it were, convulsively detach the two cohering particles. I have laughed (albeit hysterical! v) at borne witticism under cover of which I escaped, that fi%e minutes afterwards I could not perceive possessed a grain of humour. I would »dvi»e any person irho may fall into tins pitiable strait,, thnt next to getting 111 the way of * pacing dray, and being forcibly disconnected, a joke is ths mo»t efficacious. A foreign phrase often may be tried with success; I have sometiuiq* known au revoir pronounced " o-reveer" to have the- effetyt (u it ought) of ecieriag fnead*. — Bret Harte.

Elder as a Preventive of Insect Blight.— W e have met with no record of the first application of the leaves of the common elder to this purpose, but at the 134 th page of the Annual Register for 1873 is a letter from Mr Christopher Gullet, of Tavistock, Devon, to a member of the Royal Society, in which the writer details his experience in the use of elder as a preventive of the attacks of insects upon various forms of vegetation. Mr Gullett had observed how veiy " offensive to ou- olfactory nerves was the effluvia emitted by a biush of c;ieen elder leaves," and, reasoning thence, considered "how much; more so they must be to those of a butteifly, whom I con aidered as Wing so inici supcaor to us in delicacy as inferior in size." Accoidingly ho took some twigs of young elder, and with those whipped the cabl age plants " ell, but so gently as not to hurt them, just as the butterflies first appeared, from which time the butterflies would uever pitch upon them, although they would hov«r around and over the bed, and although an adjoining bed not so treated was infested as usual. A plum tree against the wall being attacked by aphides, the limbs as high up as he could reach were also whipped in the same waj, and with the «arne cilect, but the leaves on the other part of the tree, " not fim higher, and from thence upwards, were blighted, shrivelled up, and full of worm*. Some of these I afterwards restored by whipping with and tying up elder amongst them." Mr "Gullet concluded from these experiments that if nn infusion of elder leaves were made in a tub and applied by means of a garden engine at intervals during the season when such insect blights are prevalent, it would effectually answer ever) purpose, without n-k of injury to the blossom or fruit. Branches of elder were also successfully drawn over whent crops about to blossom, with a Tiew to prevent the attack of the small fly which was said to cause "yellows" in wheat by depositing its eg«s in the ears. Crops of turnips were also saved from the fly by the «arne expedient ; moreover, about eight or nine years previously, the country was so infested with " coelchaffers or oak-webs, that in many parishes they eat every green thing but elder." Mr Gullet suggests—" Whether the elder, nowdeemed noxious and offensive, may not be one day seen planted with, and entwisting its branches amongst fruit trees, in order to preserve the fruit from destruction of insects, and whether tho same means which produced these •everal effects may not be extended to a great variety of in the preservation of the vegetable kingdom." The application of an infusion of elder leaves by means of a garden engine wns a common preventive and romedy for attacks of aphides on plum and cherry trees growing upon walls in England some 30 or 40 years ago, and may possibly still be so. Old remedies are removed from time to time, and possibly this mention of Mr Gullett's experiments, first made known a century ago, may lead to a renewal of the use for elder for some of the purposes he has indicated. Why Men Don't Marry.— The reasons " why men don't marry " were fully explained in a lecture given the other day by the Key Henry Morgan to the Young Men's Christian Association in New York, on this question, interesting alike to Christian young women as to Christian young men. The reasons, according to Mr Morgan, are eight in number, and are as follows : — First, because they cannot get tho woman they want — they look too high for beauty, talent, and perfection, which are beyond their reach ; second, because they are cowards — they dare not " face the music," and quake at the lightning flashes of a fair maiden's eje ; third, because they are sceptical — they have no faith in a woman's constancy, and believe her weak and frail ; fourth, beeauaothey are selfish and stingy, and do not think they can support wives ; fifth, because women ot genius arc not always good housekeepers rev gentleman advised his audience not to marry geniuses) ; iixth, because of men's own extravagance — many young men spend their incomes foolishly and cunnot afford to marry ; seventh, because they are afraid of divorce, which is made by the laws too easy— iree love, Mr Morgan thinks, is poisoning the system of marriage ; and eighth, because of woman's extravagance — it costs as much, the lecturer said, to launch a woman on the sea of life in these times as it would to fit out a small schooner. As to sails, cordage, pennants, and streamers, the difference, he thinks, is in favour of the schooner. As to her outfit, she has te be freighted with bonnets, veils, necklaces, earrings, pins, chains, bracelet?, rings, ruffles, bows, bunds, buttons, loops, folds, pipings, plaits, silks, muslins, laces, fans, boots, slippers, paiasol?, collars, cuffs, nets, chignons, waterfalls, "rats," " mice," braids, frizzles, puffs, curls, pannier, tournurc, and Grecian bend. What a cargo, ejaculated Mr Morgan wns this for such a small vessel ' Few are the underwriters who take the risk of such a craft, and few arc the men who would marry this "Dolly Varden wnlkmg advertisement." The lecture was heard with deep emotion bv a vnst concourse of Christian young men, and those parts of it which referred to women's failings were greeted with applause. — Pall Mall Gazette. English Ironworkers in Amfkica. — A correspondent of the periodical called Iron writes : — " A few years ago the * president' (or, as we should say, the ' chairman') of one of the largest ironworking companies in the United States came ±o England. The object of his mission was to get skilled workmen, especially for Bessemer works. This simple fact struck me as rather remarkable. In England it is common enough for workmen to go on tramp in search of employment, but it is quite out of the ordinary course of our experience for a very wealthy and prosperous company to send their chairman on a very expensive journey halfway round the world in order to find workmen. The terms on which he engaged these men were nL-o icmarkable. He engaged them at once at something like double their English wages, took them across tho Atlantic with him at great expense, paying their high wages while they were waiting to start and <luring all their journey. They woro engaged for a period of years. These remarkable facts awakened my curiosity, und led mo to make further inquiries respecting the condition and career of other men in the iron trade who had left South Staffordshire, Shropshire, &c , for America, and under similar engagements. These inquiries brought out some very interesting and instructive facts. In all the cases that I could follow up I learnt that the men — puddlers, mill forgemen, &c— fulfilled their engagements faithfully, working through tho three or five years' term as arranged, but only a minority of them, in spite of very high wages, continued to be iron workers, and these were by no means tho most intelligent and provident. The majority of the best men saved sufficient to remove farther west, buy some land, and become farmers, and thus the costly operation of sending to England for first-class workmen had to be repeated." Dolls in India. — From a Bengal paper we learn that tho streets of Dacca have lately been enlivened by marriage processions of a kind by no means rare in India, however new to the minds of most Englishmen at home. In Indian households dolls play a fur more important fart than they do in England, for all the perfection to which we have attained in the art of making and clothing them aud lodging them in suitable dwellings. Indian dolls are not remarkable for beuuty or very close resemblance to liuman models, but in clothing and bedecking them no expense is spared. They hate a room to themselves, and seem to enjoy as much attention as live children and babies do elsewhere. Feasts and garden parties are given in their honour ; the death of a doll involves a great show of tmurning, and the marriage of one is quite a public event. In the present instance two dolls belonging to the daughters of the wealthiest Hindus in Dacca were duly led out at the head of a solemn procession, to the unfeigned delight of the native bystanders. After the wedding Afcmony, the parents of the girls who had thus disposed of their woodeu puppets laid ont a few thousand rupees in feasting all her friends, relatives, and caste-folk; as well as a good many of the neighbouring poor Seeing what mere dolls most Indian brides themselves are in point of age, the difference between the mock and the real ceremony is perhaps less strikingly grotesque than if English girls were among the performers. — Allens Lidian Mail. Crochet Cloak. — This is a very simple recipe for a crochet cloak, and is very pretty when made ; it is the size for a child of about four :— Cham of 28. Make in that 14 •titehes (a stitch means 3 in 1), so that you go into about every other stitch ; do about 30 or 32 rows in white Scotch fingering. — 3rd row. Increase 1 stitch by doing 6 stitches into middle stitch. After this increase 2 stitches in every other row ; this mc caso must be made in different parts of the row, but alwa/s at the same place, or you will have points. Border oi 9 rows, i «., 3 blue, 3 white, 3 blue, or according to taste ; these mu3t be carried up tho fronts, and 6 stitches made in corners, and for last row. Hood Crochet 11 stitches (3 in 1) into the 11 chain, increase to 17, and then diminish on both sides till only 5 stitches remain ; do * border all round of colored 4 rows. Rnn elastic into the hood in the last row but one, a ribbon bow and ends on middle of hood, and ribbon run in round neck. — Work Table. GrKNiPS AND STCCEBB — The man who succeeds is generally the narrow man ; the man of one idea, who works at nothing but that ; sees everything only through the light of that ; sacrifices everything to that — the fanatic, in short. Bv lanatins, whether military, commercial, or religious, nnd i not by " liberal-minded men" at all, has the world's work been done in all astes. Amid the modern cants, one of the most mistaken is the cant about the " mission of genius," the " the mission of the poet." Poets, wo hear in some quarters, are the anointed kings of mankind — at least, so tho little poets sing, each to his little fiddle. There is no greater mistake. It is the practical, prosaic il fanatic who does the work ; and tho poet, if he tries to do it, is certain to put down his spade every fire- minutes to look at the prospect, and pick flowers, and moralise on dead asses, till ho ends a Neron malgre lui-mime, fiddling melodiously while TCome is burning. — From Plays and Puritans, by the Key C. Kingiloy. A Job's Comforter —Irish ovmajor: "So, me boy, you're going to India 9 Unhealthy place, you know. The lost place I was at, cofPne were issued with annual clothing to the men, and kept as necessaries in store ; and, bedad, I had a friend who was on firing party over a man of hw company in tho morning, and who fired over himself in the ovennip, sor ! " — Punch. Sir Bones Sawjer was asked if he hud seen the "Catnract of the Ganges" at Prury-I me. Ho said no, and added, " Why don't they couch it r "

Was anyone aware that the Speaker of the House of Commons had to find his own chair, or could claim tho precious relic as"a perquisite 9 It would seem bo irom the fact, that Viscount Canterbury has presented his father a Speaker's chair to the Victorian Assembly, doubtless in the hope that it may never bi« worse filled. Or was it with the idea that some subtle virtue nmy jet cling about tho venerable article of furniture which may be of service to future occupants with less natural or acquired fitness for so difficult a seat than the dignified Manner-Sutton. Captain Macmahon, the present Victorian Speaker, has plenty of dignity of a certain sort of his own. He was famous in fie old da)s, "hen Chief Commissioner of Police, for certain Napoleonic attitudes whuh were popularly supposed to h.ive a good deal to do with Ins semi-mihtary success, winch, must be much less effective in his Speaker's robes than in the smart uniform of a Commander-in-Chief of Police. But even he will feel twice the man with a real, genuine House of Commons Speaker's chair behind him, to support his dignity by lending him its ewn. What an additional solemnity, impressive enough to awe to silence even a Buchanan will be given to the cry of " Chair !" when it is remembered what illustrious company that seat of honour has kept in its time. We shouldn't w under if a millennium of Parliamentary politeness were to set in, all owing to the ex-Govarnor's happy thought of that wonderful chair. In the words of the old song There will be no more " sceiifs," for who will dare To kick up a row with that old arm chair ? X B —The luuatic who suggested that as a M'Mahon would be its first occupant, tho chair should havo been a Sedan chair, was, we understand, engaged on the spot for Punch. — Town and Country. Shakespeare's birthday was celebrated at Stratford-on-Avon bv a general suspension of business. At one o clock Miss Glyn read Hamlet in the Corn- Exchange, and m the afternoon there was a public luncheon, at which the Mayor was in the chair. The Mayor called upon Miss Glyn to propose the toast of the evening, "The Immortal Memory of Shakespeare." Miss Glyn said she was not used to speaking in public except when inspired by the eloquence of Shakespeare. She had spoken from Shakespeare two hours and three-quarters during the afternoon, and thought that was long enough for any one to speak. She would propose the toast of the "Immortal Memory of Shakespeare — "the everlasting youth whom age cannot wither, nor custom stale his infinite variety." Mr C. F. Flower proposed "The Drama." He said it must be regretted that Stratford bad not now any theatre in which they might see the English drama and the plays of their great townsman represented He trusted it would not be long before Englishmen would crest a theatre m Stratford, and ono tbat externally ana internally should be worthy of tho man whose name it should Ibe associated with. It' should be a memorial theatre— a monument to Shakespeare. The chairman announced that Miss Glynn had promised to perform a month when they should open the theatre.— Pall Mall Gazette. An epitaph, which is hard on " the father," in a churchyard, rend* as follows : — Here lies the mother of children five ; Two nre dead and three are alive, The two that are dead preferring rather To die with the mother than live with the father. It is a strawge question, but a rather pertinent one to ask, whether or not some of the homicides now so frequent are not got up in order to advertise the patent revolver they are committed with. This idea is originated by tho Yonkers Gazette. Captain of Rural Corps (calling over the roll) : " George Hodge!" (No answer.) "George Hodge! Where on earth's George Hodge?" Voice from tho ranks : " Please, sir, he's turned Dissenter, and says fighting's wicked." — Punch. A sheriff in Florida, who was called upon to resign, wrote back : — "Your communication is received, stating that my resignation will meet tho approval of the Governor. It does not meet mine " ' Whj ,' asked a governess of her little charge, 'do we pmy God to giro us our daily bread 9 Why don't we ask for four days, or five days, or a week ?' 'We want it fresh,' replied the child. An enthusiastic dramatic critic 6ays of a popular actress, that " when she ran out to meet her lover, she carried the whole of the audience with her " An Irish paper announces that " in the absence of both editors the publishers have succeeded in securing the services of a gentleman to edit the paper this week." A printer remarks that he has never been able to give a proof of the pudding till it was locked up in his form. A rising artist is painting for tho next Academy Exhibition a picture of death "as large as life." What length, ought a lady's petticoat to be ? A little above two feet.