Why Jim Doesn't Marry.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXXV, Issue 13, 30 September 1905, Page 52

Why Jim Doesn't Marry.

“Why don’t you get married, Jim?” “Can’t afford it, my dear fellow.” “Why not?” “What a question! Rents, rates, servants’ wages, wife’s dress —-why, I’d be in the Bankruptcy Court in a year!” How very often one hears a conversation of this type! And, on the face of it, it seems that Jim has reason on his side. Take a young bachelor of twenty-live, working in an office on a salary of one hundred and fifty to three hundred a year. He lives in rooms, or a boardinghouse, and pays a fixed sum weekly for bed and breakfast. Rates are to him an unknown terror. Unless his income exceeds ±!lt>o, he pays no direct taxes at all. He is not bothered with requests for subscriptions to local charities. When holiday-time comes round he goes where he pleases, and spends his time as he likes. He is absolutely a free agent, and, on the face of it, the charm of such an existence is great. Small wonder, then, that when Jim at last falls beneath the thrall of the one woman in the world and throwing overboard all his old-time philosophy rushes into matrimony, his bachelor friends shrug their shoulders, and say: “Poor old Jim! Another good fellow gone crazy! ”