Vhey Think It Is a Mistake to Tax Bachelors.

Manawatu Herald, 25 August 1896, Page 4

Vhey Think It Is a Mistake to Tax Bachelors.

"What do you think of the bill to tax baohelors?" asked the girl who was preparing a paper on the artistic in politics. "I consider it a direct blow at matrimony," replied the young woman who never mentioned birthdays. "For mercy sake, why bo?" twittered the girl who always told the nearest man Bhe exactly agreed with his views. "Humph! It's easy enough for anybody to see. Man is the most obstinate creature in existence. Once let him get an idea that the state wants to force him into matrimony, and he will decline to wed Venus herself, though she be a daughter of all the Vanderbilts into the bargain." "There may be something in that," broke in the girl whose soul was In her sleeves. "1 once knew a girl who tried for two seasons to make an impression on the wealthiest man in her set. Thinking she had failed, she joined a society in order to become a member of whioh she was obliged to hold a redhot curling iron in her hand exactly at midnight and swear never to marry. The penalty of breaking her oath was to have a lithographed copy of a page in her family Bible inolosed with her wedding cards." "How perfectly awful!" breathed the young woman who never mentioned birthdays. "Do tell us what happened." "Oh, as soon as he found it out he declared he'd shoot himself if she refused to marry him, go they just eloped and sent out no cards at all." "Stuff and nonsense!" said the girl who was preparing an essay on the irtlstio In politics. "Bat seriously It will bo much cheaper for a man to pay $26 a year tax than to settle milliners' and dressmakers' bills every month, and the baohelors are not going to forget that either." "Ob, as for that," gloomily remarked the girl whose soul was in her sleeves, "if we are going to wear men's shirts, ties, hate, collars, coats, vests and —or—bloomers, a man will soon be able t>3 dress his wife in his own castoff clothes. Besides, who would want to live in andd maids' home anyhow?" "I should," remarked the young woman who never spoke of birthdays, "provided tho man I had refused because he was so stingy had to help pay for it." "There's one thing sure," spoke up the frivolous girl in the corner. "It's going to make things awfully bard on us if that bill does pass. Take, for instance, the case of tho man to whom you can't Just make up your mind to say ' ¥es' and still tods to&fr 'No.' Why, he'll just take that 925 a year out of what he'd pay for flowers and candy while he was waiting for you to make up your mind." "True," said the girl whose soul was in her sleeves, "but there's one thing we could do. We might get up a young wornan's protective syndicate and keep strict account of the men who had been once or twice rejected. Then, in case they tried to dodge tho tax by proposing to one of us, we might just accept and then throw them over. The bill makes no provision for broken engagements, I take it." "None at all," sold the girl who was preparing an essay on tho artistic in politics. "But, as Amy has just; said, the amount of the tax would be deducted from our perquisites in any case. J move we get up a lobby to defeat the bill. All in favor of the motion say aye. All opposed'' — "Aye!" cried a deafening femalechorus.