No Brides Under 18

New York, 1895

Without Parents' Consent, or Felony on the Part of Clergymen.

The new law, raising the age of consent of girls from 16 to 18 years, has called forth a statement from Judge McAdam of the Superior Court. The new law takes effect on Sept. 1 next. The Judge says:

"No magistrate or clergyman should, after Sept. 1, 1895, perform the marriage ceremony where the female is under 18 years without the consent of her parents or guardian. If he does he may unconsciously be made accessory to a criminal offence.

"The section of the Penal Code is 282, which was passed on April 27 last, providing that any person who takes a female under the age of 18 without the consent of her father, mother, guardian, or other person having charge of her person, for the purpose of marriage, is guilty of abduction, punishable by fine and imprisonment. The act does not declare in terms such marriage void, yet, being in violation of law, it may be voidable.

"The age of a female is always problematical. The polite way to determine it is to allow the lady to declare it herself and accept her statement, but this will not satisfy legal requirements, and no official will be safe in performing the ceremony after Sept. 1 without first consulting the bride's parents or guardian, unless age has made its impress in such a manner as to defy deception."

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, May 10, 1895, p. 8.

What the Tweed Ring Cost New York

1895

In the summer of 1871 proof was published of vast frauds by leading New York city officials, prominent among them "Boss" William M. Tweed, superintendent of the street department. Having made themselves supreme, these men so worked the city elections as to control the city government, placing themselves in 1866 each in the office he wished. A new charter, of which they secured the adoption, gave them absolute charge of the city's purse.

Exorbitant claims for work and material had been paid, raising the city's debt from $50,000,000 to $113,000,000, with bills to an unknown amount not adjusted. Thus the courthouse, building at this time, ostensibly cost $12,000,000. The ring's robberies cheated the city's taxpayers, first and last, out of no less than $160,000,000, "or four times the fine levied on Paris by the German army." — Scribner's Magazine.


She Investigated

Some Kansas girls are businesslike. One of them with four married sisters received a proposal of a marriage last week and asked a week to think it over. She went to see all of her married sisters. One, who used to be a belle, had three children, did all her own work and hadn't been to the theater or out riding since she was married. Another, whose husband was a promising young man at the time she married, was supporting him. A third didn't dare say her life was her own when her husband was around, and the fourth was divorced. After visiting them and hearing their woes the heroine of this narrative went home, got pen, ink and paper and wrote an answer to the young man. It would only be natural to suppose that it was a refusal, but it wasn't. She accepted the young man and said she could be ready for the ceremony within a month. — Boston Herald.

When Men Should Marry

1895

It was clearly meant that all men as well as all women should marry, and those who, for whatever reason, miss this obvious destiny are, from nature's point of view, failures.

It is not a question of personal felicity (which in eight cases out of ten may be more than problematic), but of race responsibility. The unmarried man is a skulker, who, in order to secure his own ease, dooms some woman, who has a rightful claim upon him, to celibacy. And in so doing he defrauds himself of the opportunities for mental and moral development which only the normal experience can provide. He deliberately stunts the stature of his manhood, impoverishes his heart and brain and chokes up all the sweetest potentialities of his soul.

To himself he is apt to appear like the wise fox that detects the trap, though it be ever so cunningly baited; that refuses to surrender his liberty for the sake of an appetizing chicken or rabbit, which may, after all, be a decoy, stuffed with sawdust, while, as a matter of fact, his case is that of the cowardly servant in the parable, who, for fear of losing his talent, hid it in a napkin, and in the end was deemed unworthy of his stewardship. — North American Review.

Incendiaries at Work

New York, 1895

The police of Far Rockaway are puzzled by an incendiary fire that damaged the summer cottage of J. Furman at Inwood to the extent of $300, and endangered the lives of Mrs. Cornelius Davenport and her children, who live in the house. A hole had been cut from the outside into an unoccupied room on the lower floor and through this combustibles had been introduced and the match applied.


MARRIED.

SMITH — SMITH. — By the Rev. J. Howard Hobbs, on March 27th, 1895, Abraham D. Smith to Miss Phebe Smith, both of Jamaica.

Don't Trust Davis' Wife

New York, 1895

Eugene Wellington Davis, the merchant of Riverhead who since Thursday of last week has been looking for his wife, who so abruptly decamped with the servant girl, returned to Riverhead from New York Monday night. Davis was in company with his son. Mrs. Davis did not put in an appearance. Mr. Davis had nothing to say. The flight of Mrs. Davis was evidently cleverly planned. Much of value was taken away.

The following notice appeared in the New York Sun Tuesday morning:

All persons are forbidden to either harbor or trust my wife, Berneice M. Davis, on my account, as I will pay no bills of her contracting.

EUGENE W. DAVIS.

Note: From the internet, here is a link for a Eugene W. Davis from the same vicinity as this fellow. No mention of Berneice, however. If it's him, she must have come later in life, like around 1890, guessing. And of course Berneice is usually spelled Berniece, so this could be a typo.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 8, 1895, p. 1.

A Valuable Old Meadow

1895

An ancient document was recorded in the register's office in New York the other day which will tend to show the rapid growth of the city and the advance in the price of real estate. The document in question is a conveyance executed July 15, 1817, by Samuel Watkins of the city of New York, physician, to Isaac and Michael Dyckman, sons of Jacobus Dyckman of Kingsbridge, and conveys a piece of land, being salt meadow near Kings bridge, containing five acres, adjoining land of John Nagle and Blazo Moore, Jr., for the sum of $56.25. As now laid out the property is bounded by Academy street, Harlem river, Sherman avenue and Dyckman street, and comprises six full blocks in section 8 on the land map of the city of New York. The present value of this property must be between $300,000 and $500,000.


A Domestic Conversation

Her Father — So you have had a proposal, my daughter?
Herself — Yes, papa, several. An iceman proposed to me.
Her Father (breathlessly) — Did you accept him, my dear?
Herself — Nay, nay, papa.
Her Father — Ingrate!
Herself — After him a plumber proposed to me, dear papa.
Her Father (excitedly) — And him — did you accept him?
Herself — Not for jewels and precious stones, papa mine.
Her Father — Fool! Idiot!
Herself — I had a third proposal, papa. The gentleman is an iceman in the summer time and a plumber in the winter.
Her Father (on the verge of apoplexy) — Madeline —
Herself (calmly) — I accepted him, father.
Her Father — Fall on my neck, my angel child. You are the rarest rose of them all. — Milwaukee Sentinel.

Curiosities of Marriage

1895

A Great Many Widowers and Widows Remarry, Sometimes Twice.

It has been remarked that times of speculation are invariably accompanied by an increase of marriages. Dr. Farr, the eminent statistician, hazards thereon the suggestion that it is the spirit of speculation itself that leads many to embark on matrimony at such times. Another reason, which he is careful not to ignore, is the increased prosperity that induces and sometimes seems to accompany what he calls the periodical epidemics of speculation.

A great war, after it is over, is good for marriage. So is a good harvest, so is the establishment of new industries, or the extension of old ones. The reason is the same in all these instances — the increased prosperity of the general body of the people. So intimately is matrimony associated with national well doing that it has come to be styled the barometer of prosperity. Its indications, however, are more for the future than for the present dealing rather with the expected and anticipated than with the actual. But this only goes to substantiate what was said of marriage as a speculation.

The nation is sometimes extraordinarily sanguine, and when this is the case marriages are plentiful. Great popular leaders inspire this feeling. A statesman of genius at the head of affairs perceptibly increases the marriage rate.

In a word, the great fluctuations in the marriages are the results of peace after war, abundance after dearth, high wages after want of employment, speculation after languid enterprise, confidence after distrust and national triumphs after national disasters.

Autumn is the favorite season everywhere. With few spring is preferred. Half the weddings throughout the country are celebrated on Wednesday and Thursday. Saturday has more than its average number. Friday is not a favorite, as few marriages are celebrated on that day.

Widowers are more inclined to marry than bachelors. Widows are more inclined to marry than spinsters. Both facts are eloquent in favor of the comparative advantages of matrimony. For one bachelor that marries between the ages of 50 and 55, seven widowers remarry between these ages. These are marriages out of equal numbers of each class. The actual number of bachelors married will be greater only in proportion as they exceed by seven to one the actual number of widowers living at these ages. Under the same conditions, for every spinster married between 30 and 65 two widows are remarried. Inasmuch as the total number of spinsters far exceeds that of widows, and the figures given refer to marriages out of equal numbers, this disparity is not so noticeable. Its existence, however, is beyond dispute. Similarly, out of an equal number of widowers and bachelors between 25 and 30 years of age, 30 widowers remarry for every 13 bachelors who enter the bonds of Hymen for the first time.

Finally, one in ten of the survivors of the young men now living and one in eight of the young women now living will die as bachelors and spinsters if they live to the age of 60 and upward, besides the great numbers who died at younger ages. — New York Dispatch.

Quite a Name Changer

1895

There is a woman living in the Sinnamahoning valley, Pennsylvania, who was born an Orr, and by marriage she has in turn changed her name to Barnes, Calahan, Rix, Enos, Robinson, Elder and now Bailey.

Each of her six dead husbands had been a soldier in the late war, and she married the first one in 1863, when she was 17. It is hardly fair to say, either, that those husbands were exactly six, for not one of them had all of himself left when he succeeded to the title of husband to this admirer of the military. Three of the husbands had only one leg apiece, one had only seven fingers, besides being short a leg, another wooed and won the widow with one leg and one arm, and the sixth was minus an eye.

Her present husband is not a veteran of the war and has all his legs, arms, fingers and eyes. Mrs. Bailey is not yet 49 and is the mother of 12 children, two each by her soldier husbands. — New York Tribune.

Matchmaking In New Mexico

1895

In the old Spanish-American days in the southwest marriage was a matter in which the contracting parties had little to say, the question of choice and fitness being settled by the parents of the couple. The practice has fallen so much out of date in the present generation that it sounds odd to read now in a published account of a recent marriage at Guadalupita, N. M., in which a Mexican of 68 years wedded a senorita of 16 years; that the compensations he was called upon to make for the difference in their respective ages was settled at 30 varas of land, an adobe house and five apple trees, presumably to be paid to her parents. — Chicago Tribune.


What Bothered Her

Mildred — So you sprained your ankle jumping from a cable car, oh? Was it painful?
Gertrude — Oh, I didn't mind the pain, but when I saw how young and handsome the ambulance surgeon was and remembered that I was wearing nile green stockings with a tan colored dress I fainted dead away! — New York Herald.


Trivia

A Pompeiian hand mirror of brass cost 78 cents, of silver $9.27, and the seller guaranteed to keep it bright.

Rye contains from 2 to 5 per cent less of the nitrogenous principles than wheat.

A Queer Divorce Suit

New York, 1895

ABANDONED HIS WIFE FOR A SERVANT GIRL'S LOVE.

Mrs. Muhlenberg of Queens Got $12,000 for Living Expenses and Later $5,000 for Signing a Deed — Assemblyman Vacheron Seeking to Make Divorce Easy.

Justice Gaynor heard a queer divorce case in Long Island City Monday. The case was that of Dorothea F. E. Muhlenberg against George F. W. Muhlenberg.

During the trial defendant admitted his guilt, but said his wife consented. The couple were married in Germany June 13, 1859. On June 13, 1881, the anniversary of the marriage, he told his wife that he was tired of her. Then he settled $12,000 upon her, and went to live with Louise Speith, a servant girl. Up to 1889 he ate at his wife's house, and then he left her entirely. The plaintiff moved to Queens.

When Justice Gaynor asked the defendant if he had left his wife the witness replied that he had, but that she was willing. He explained that he had given her $3,000 since they parted. Mrs. Muhlenberg testified that the $3,000 which she received from her husband Was from the sale of a house in New York. The defendant had sold the house and the servant had signed the deed. When the purchaser discovered the fact he threatened to have Muhlenberg arrested. She signed the deed after she secured one-half of the purchase price.

Justice Gaynor reserved his decision.

Assemblyman Vacheron is a Frenchman. His loose ideas of marriage are exposed editorially by the New York Sun:

"Under the existing law of the state of York, marital infidelity is the only ground for absolute divorce. An effort to change the law, and to permit voluntary divorce under certain circumstances, is now on foot in the legislature, through a bill introduced in the Assembly by Mr. Eugene F. Vacheron of Queens county. The introduction is stated to be "by request," but whose request is not disclosed.

"This measure provides, in substance, that where a husband and wife have been so alienated and estranged from each other as to have lived apart for a continuous period of fifteen years, a divorce may be granted 'in case the husband and wife each voluntarily ask therefor, provided there be no minor children living from their wedlock.'

"Such a law would mean nothing more or less than the introduction of a system of voluntary divorce into our jurisprudence.

"In a few years the period of estrangement necessary as the foundation for such a divorce would be shortened, and presently we should have a statute allowing the absolute dissolution of the marriage tie after a separation not more than one-fifth as long as that contemplated by Mr. Vacheron.

"We do not regard such a change as desirable. On the contrary, we are sure that most thoughtful people will agree with us in objecting most emphatically to any enactment of this kind.

"The Assembly Committee on Codes, to which the bill has been referred, should tear it up and throw it into the waste basket."

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, March 1, 1895, p. 1.

May Marriages

1895

It is usually supposed that May is an unpropitious month for marriages, and this view is generally sustained by the official figures. In Great Britain, where the figures are carefully kept, of 1,200 marriages in a year the even average per month would be 100. Instead of this June, the favorite month for marriages, stands at the head with 174. January comes next with 160, December with 139, July with 124, November with 114, and so on down to February with 70, May bringing up the rear with 49. In Germany April is the favorite month, and October comes second. In Hungary February is the favorite month, and November comes second. In Greece October comes first, January second; in Italy February first, November second; in France April first and January second; in Sweden November first, December second.

In Russia the curious fact is noted that two months — March and November, corresponding to our Easter time and Christmas — are practically barred from marriages, these being the average figures on the basis of 1,200 in a year: February, 270; January, 230; October, 185; November, 174; March, 12; December, 9. The average duration of marriages is highest in Russia, 30 years, and least in Holland, 23 years. The average marrying age of women in Russia is 21 years, and in Holland 28 years, which accounts for this difference.


Decoletto

"I'll bet," remarked Mr. Jason to his wife as they sat in the family circle at the play, "I'll bet from the looks of it that the dress that there woman in the box is wearin is one of them elegant dresses 'one-half off' we seed advertised yisterday in the papers." — Indianapolis Journal.

A Woman Held for Bigamy

New York, 1895

Eva Kate Schmidt, aged 21 years, was arrested on Bushwick avenue, Brooklyn, Friday afternoon on a charge of bigamy. She was arraigned before Justice Monteverde in Newtown, who held her in $1,000 bail.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Jan. 25, 1895, p. 1.

Mr. Ketcham Wants a Divorce

New York, 1895

George W. Ketcham, jr., of Northport, seeks a divorce from his wife, Luella M. Ketcham, naming Michael Rannay as corespondent. Mrs. Ketcham left her home suddenly on the night of January 2, and, with Ranney, went to Brooklyn and set up housekeeping.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Jan. 25, 1895, p. 1.

Whipped and Skipped the Town

New York, 1895

In October last J. R. Haggerty married a daughter of Jacob Weyrich of Oyster Bay. The bride was nearly 16. The ceremony was with full consent of the girl's parents. It is alleged by the parents of the girl that she was neglected and she was kept away from her husband. He pleaded for his wife's return. On Monday in a fight between him and one of his brothers in-law, it resulted disastrously for Haggerty. He was arrested and fined $10. Haggerty has left Oyster Bay.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, Jan. 25, 1895, p. 1.

Widower Finds Housekeeper

1920

His Appeal Gets Results When He Adds "Object, Matrimony."

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania. — Joseph Duffel of Gloucester City, a shipworker and a widower for five months, found it impossible to get a housekeeper to answer an advertisement. So he added, "Object, matrimony."

Mrs. Rose Stafsky, 25 years old, also of Gloucester, a widow with three children ranging in age from 6 years to 6 months, found it impossible to get along comfortably without her husband. She saw the advertisement. The two were married at Elkton, Md.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 5.

Girlless-town Swain Awaits Bride in Vain

1920

Says He Sent Her $20, but She Failed to Appear.

CINCINNATI, Ohio. — Girls, a true-blue man has been discovered. Also a town has been found where there are no eligible girls and at least twelve young men who want brides.

The man is Robert Alldaffer, 24, of Snyder, Mich., who passed his second day of waiting at Central Union station for his fiancee. He never has seen her, but promised to meet her in Cincinnati.

"There are only two girls among the fifty inhabitants of Snyder," Alldaffer said, "and they are engaged."

Alldaffer sought a wife thru a matrimonial agency. A furnished house in Snyder awaits the "bride-to-be," who represented herself as Cora Graham, widow, 25, Afton, Tenn.

The courtship dated from May 15, when she wrote to him in reply to an advertisement in the matrimonial paper. She wrote that she had no money. He mailed her $20 to pay for a railroad ticket, he said. He also provided a blue bow similar to the one he wore on his coat, for it was by the blue bow that the lovers were to identify each other.

He has scanned the faces of every woman traveler, but the young widow failed to appear. "I'm afraid she's sick," he said. "It must be that or some trouble she experienced while traveling." Alldaffer still believes in the sincerity of his bride-to-be, but finally decided to buy a ticket for home.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 5.

U. S. Seems To Be Land of Husbands

1920

FOREIGN GIRLS INVADING AMERICA BY WHOLESALE.

Feminine Army Hailing From All Nations Waits at New York for Lovers.

NEW YORK, N. Y., Aug. 5. — Brides, pink, nut-brown, olive and rosy, slender, chubby and plump, are anxiously inquiring at Ellis Island these days in a Babel of tongues for the sweethearts they have come so far to capture and break into domestic teamwork.

These modern Penelopes, who have reversed the old story and gone in search of their mates instead of supinely waiting and spinning at home, have adventured to more businesslike purpose than did old meandering Odysseus. They have winged a true course despite all the difficulties of these unsettled times.

They, together with aged relatives of kinsfolk already established here and wives and children coming to rejoin husbands, form a considerable part of the present mounting wave of immigrants, and their eager attractiveness just now is doing much to brighten the Island's grim labyrinth.

They're From All Lands.

There is such a choice and so cosmopolitan a bouquet of young brides at the Island that they deserve a consideration all to themselves, excluding from notice all of the faltering steps beside them of the aged fled from the chaos of Europe to secure haven with their children in America, and the prattlers in everything from Gaelic to Arabic, at last in a land of plentiful bread and milk.

Mary, Kathleen, Mollie, Malaki, Helena, Gastana, Taube, Conception, Mitzi and Germaine, all tender in years, all distractingly pretty, all in sparkling spirits, hailing from seven different countries and speaking seven different languages, clustered together in the New York detention room awaiting the arrival of their sweethearts, formed as inspirational citizen material as the Old World has ever sent us.

Mary, Kathleen and Mollie were Irish girls — home-makers they said — impatient to be away from the Island and at their chosen profession. Mollie Malone, a slender, brown-haired, brown-eyed girl from Dublin, jollied all rhyme and reason out of a would-be serious interview. She volunteered that she was going somewhere west of the Hudson River to marry a Yank whom she had met while he was doughboying overseas.

Draws Paper From Stocking.

Malaki Ayoub, a Syrian girl from Beirut, an exotic moving picture princess without half trying, olive skinned, dimpled, lustrous dark eyes, black hair, of plump, languorous dignity, also comes to marry. The interview with Malaki was limited to a word or so and nods, the interpreter, Nathan Greenberg, master of a sheaf of languages, being unable to understand much of the meat of her speech. Malaki, with naive, near-Eastern frankness, drew an official paper from the National Lisle Bank and verified the spelling of her name.

There was a slight English girl from Manchester among the brides. She refused to tell her name or anything about herself, but did consent to tell the interviewer that he should be heartily ashamed of Ellis Island and its tedious ways. She said that she reached New York on the Aquitania and she thought it a needless delay to be kept from her friends and sweetheart for four days.

Gastana Marchegiana[*] from Abruzzi and Conception Rodriguez from Seville, Spain, were two Southern beauties. Mitzi was a reticent girl from St. Gall, Switzerland, an embroidery worker. Taube (dove translated) Green (also a translation which she has adopted as appropriate to beginning her life in America) was an unusually pretty Polish Jewess, accompanied by her mother. Taube is a seamstress, as eager to enter the field of American business as she is to begin home-making here.

Conditions Bad in Poland.

Taube, who is going to Chicago, gave a discouraging description of conditions in Poland, where, she said, there is much near famine, and already much of the graft that characterizes democratic government. She said that it took four weeks' time and considerable backsheesh for her party to get its passports to leave Poland.

Germaine Dubuc of Bordeaux, France, following two years later in the wake of a California doughboy now established in a Western export house, was the last but not least attractive of the young brides-to-be greeted as they paced expectantly, some fretfully, before the doors of the detention room awaiting their sweethearts to claim them.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 5.

Note: [*] This name is right on the fold and so is hard to read. But it looks like it says Gactana Marchegina, more sure about the first name than the last. Earlier in the article, though, there is a reference to Gastana, certainly this same person. And the last name doesn't Google well, but with Marchegiana there are a lot more. Neither, of course, is necessarily right, but this is what we went with.

Disappearance of Mrs. Ketcham

New York, 1895

Mrs. George W. Ketcham, Jr., is missing from her home in Northport. She left late on Wednesday night of last week. Her departure was premeditated, for she took with her all of her clothing, wedding presents, silverware, linen, and everything that she could in any way lay claim to.

George Rainney, a baker, has also disappeared from the village.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 11, 1895, p. 1.

A Wife Beater Punished

New York, 1895

John A. Welden, residing on the Springfield road at Queens, went home Saturday evening intoxicated. He had a quarrel with his wife, then beat her and threw her out into the street. Complaint was made to Justice Kissam. Welden was arrested and locked up in the Town Hall by Deputy Sheriff Thornton. Monday he was arraigned before Justice Hendrickson at Jamaica, on a charge of assault in the third degree, and fined $25. He paid the fine.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 11, 1895, p. 1.

The Ryders Fall Out

New York, 1895

The Husband Says He Didn't Know He Was Getting Married.

Some testimony was given on Saturday in Justice Taylor's court at Hempstead in the case brought by Isabella Ryder, nee Holmes, against her husband for abandonment. Mrs. Ryder said that she was married last June by Counselor Mansfield Compton and after ten days Ryder deserted her. She presented a ring he gave her several days previous to their separation to make their marriage more binding.

Ryder said that the ring was stolen from him, that it was the property of his mother, and that it was taken from his finger probably while he was under the influence of some drug. He further stated that he was intoxicated when the ceremony was performed and was not aware of the nature of the proceedings. Counselor Compton agreed with Ryder as to his condition at the time of the marriage, but was of the opinion that Ryder knew what he was doing.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, N.Y., Jan. 11, 1895, p. 1.