MARRIAGE

MRS. QUACKENNESS--"Am yo' daughtar happily mar'd, Sistah Sagg?"



MRS. SAGG--"She sho' is! Bless goodness she's done got a husband dat's

skeered to death of her!"





"Where am I?" the invalid exclaimed, waking from the long delirium of

fever and feeling the comfort that loving hands had supplied. "Where am

I--in heaven?"



"No, dear," cooed his wife; "I am still with you "





Archbishop Ryan was visiting a small parish in a mining district one day

for the purpose of administering confirmation, and asked one nervous

little girl what matrimony is.



"It is a state of terrible torment which those who enter are compelled

to undergo for a time to prepare them for a brighter and better world,"

she said.



"No, no," remonstrated her rector; "that isn't matrimony: that's the

definition of purgatory."



"Leave her alone," said the Archbishop; "maybe she is right. What do you

and I know about it?"





"Was Helen's marriage a success?"



"Goodness, yes. Why, she is going to marry a nobleman on the

alimony."--_Judge_.





JENNIE--"What makes George such a pessimist?"



JACK--"Well, he's been married three times--once for love, once for

money and the last time for a home."





Matrimony is the root of all evil.





One day Mary, the charwoman, reported for service with a black eye.



"Why, Mary," said her sympathetic mistress, "what a bad eye you have!"



"Yes'm."



"Well, there's one consolation. It might have been worse."



"Yes'm."



"You might have had both of them hurt."



"Yes'm. Or worse'n that: I might not ha' been married at all."





A wife placed upon her husband's tombstone: "He had been married forty

years and was prepared to die."





"I can take a hundred words a minute," said the stenographer.



"I often take more than that," said the prospective employer; "but then

I have to, I'm married."





A man and his wife were airing their troubles on the sidewalk one

Saturday evening when a good Samaritan intervened.



"See here, my man," he protested, "this sort of thing won't do."



"What business is it of yours, I'd like to know," snarled the man,

turning from his wife.



"It's only my business in so far as I can be of help in settling this

dispute," answered the Samaritan mildly.



"This ain't no dispute," growled the man.



"No dispute! But, my dear friend--"



"I tell you it ain't no dispute," insisted the man. "She"--jerking his

thumb toward the woman--"thinks she ain't goin to get my week's wages,

and I know darn well she ain't. Where's the dispute in that?"





HIS BETTER HALF--"I think it's time we got Lizzie married and settled

down, Alfred. She will be twenty-eight next week you know."



HER LESSER HALF--"Oh, don't hurry, my dear. Better wait till the right

sort of man comes along."



HIS BETTER HALF--"But why wait? I didn't!"





O'Flanagan came home one night with a deep band of black crape around

his hat.



"Why, Mike!" exclaimed his wife. "What are ye wearin' thot mournful

thing for?"



"I'm wearin' it for yer first husband," replied Mike firmly. "I'm sorry

he's dead."





"What a strangely interesting face your friend the poet has," gurgled

the maiden of forty. "It seems to possess all the elements of happiness

and sorrow, each struggling for supremacy."



"Yes, he looks to me like a man who was married and didn't know it,"

growled the Cynical Bachelor.





The not especially sweet-tempered young wife of a Kaslo B.C., man one

day approached her lord concerning the matter of one hundred dollars or

so.





"I'd like to let you have it, my dear," began the husband, "but the

fact is I haven't that amount in the bank this morning--that is to say,

I haven't that amount to spare, inasmuch as I must take up a note for

two hundred dollars this afternoon."



"Oh, very well, James!" said the wife, with an ominous calmness, "If you

think the man who holds the note can make things any hotter for you than

I can--why, do as you say, James!"





A young lady entered a book store and inquired of the gentlemanly

clerk--a married man, by-the-way--if he had a book suitable for an old

gentleman who had been married fifty years.



Without the least hesitation the clerk reached for a copy of Parkman's

"A Half Century of Conflict."





Smith and Jones were discussing the question of who should be head of

the house--the man or the woman.



"I am the head of my establishment," said Jones. "I am the bread-winner.

Why shouldn't I be?"



"Well," replied Smith, "before my wife and I were married we made an

agreement that I should make the rulings in all major things, my wife in

all the minor."



"How has it worked?" queried Jones.



Smith smiled. "So far," he replied, "no major matters have come up."





A poor lady the other day hastened to the nursery and said to her little

daughter:



"Minnie, what do you mean by shouting and screaming? Play quietly, like

Tommy. See, he doesn't make a sound."



"Of course he doesn't," said the little girl. "That is our game. He is

papa coming home late, and I am you."





The stranger advanced toward the door. Mrs. O'Toole stood in the doorway

with a rough stick in her left hand and a frown on her brow.



"Good morning," said the stranger politely. "I'm looking for Mr.

O'Toole."



"So'm I," said Mrs. O'Toole, shifting her club over to her other hand.





TIM--"Sarer Smith (you know 'er--Bill's missus), she throwed herself

horf the end uv the wharf larst night."



TOM--"Poor Sarer!"



TIM--"An' a cop fished 'er out again."



TOM--"Poor Bill!"





The cooing stops with the honeymoon, but the billing goes on forever.





"Well, old man, how did you get along after I left you at midnight. Get

home all right?"



"No; a confounded nosey policeman haled me to the station, where I spent

the rest of the night."



"Lucky dog! I reached home."





STRANGER--"What's the fight about?"



NATIVE--"The feller on top is Hank Hill wot married the widder Strong,

an' th' other's Joel Jenks, wot interdooced him to her."--_Life_.





A colored man had been arrested on a charge of beating and cruelly

misusing his wife. After hearing the charge against the prisoner, the

justice turned to the first witness.



"Madam," he said, "if this man were your husband and had given you a

beating, would you call in the police?"



The woman addressed, a veritable Amazon in size and aggressiveness,

turned a smiling countenance towards the justice and answered: "No,

jedge. If he was mah husban', and he treated me lak he did 'is wife, Ah

wouldn't call no p'liceman. No, sah, Ah'd call de undertaker."





We admire the strict impartiality of the judge who recently fined his

wife twenty-five dollars for contempt of court, but we would hate to

have been in the judge's shoes when he got home that night.





"How many children have you?" asked the census-taker.



The man addressed removed the pipe from his mouth, scratched his head,

thought it over a moment, and then replied:



"Five--four living and one married."





SHE--"How did they ever come to marry?"



HE--"Oh, it's the same old story. Started out to be good friends, you

know, and later on changed their minds."--_Puck_.





Nat Goodwin and a friend were walking along Fifth Avenue one afternoon

when they stopped to look into a florist's window, in which there was an

artistic arrangement of exquisite roses.



"What wonderful American Beauties those are, Nat!" said the friend

delightedly.



"They are, indeed," replied Nat.



"You see, I am very fond of that flower," continued the friend. "In

fact, I might say it is my favorite. You know, Nat, I married an

American beauty."



"Well," said Nat dryly, "you haven't got anything on me. I married a

cluster."





"Are you quite sure that was a marriage license you gave me last month?"



"Of course! What's the matter?"



"Well, I thought there might be some mistake, seeing that I've lived a

dog's life ever since."





Is not marriage an open question, when it is alleged, from the beginning

of the world, that such as are in the institution wish to get out, and

such as are out wish to get in.--_Emerson_.





HOUSEHOLDER--"Here, drop that coat and clear out!"



BURGLAR--"You be quiet, or I'll wake your wife and give her this letter

I found in your pocket."





The reason why so few marriages are happy is because young ladies spend

their time in making nets, not in making cages.--_Swift_.





_See also_ Church discipline; Domestic finance; Trouble.