Silent Women.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 3, Issue 72, 1 March 1883, Page 2

Silent Women.

A wife who lives in' the town of Harmony (?) has not spoken to her husband for twenty-one .years! In 1859 ,the husband contradicted her. harshly m the presence of company, and she threatened that if he did'nt behave better towards her she would never speak to him again. He retorted that he wjshed she would'nt, and she has not since spoken to him. They have continued to live together peaceably, and during the Ion? silence have had several children. Everything gogspn at their house as usual with farmers. The husband is attentive, and converses with his wife through one of the children. For instance, be will ask a child at the table, " Will your mother have some more, meat?" Or at another time, "Is your mother going to town with me to* day ?'* The family are wealthy and respectable. There has been until recently a curious case of silence m Michigan. A Mrs Mills lost her health about thirty years ago under the trials and privations of rude Western life. She finally took to her bad and maintained such inexorable silence there that her family were compelled to believe that she was insane. Her children srew up and wero married anrt others took the household cares, while she continued silent m bed. Not long ago a hired attendant presuming upon her inability to complain was guilty of some special impudence. Instantly she sprang out of bed, and with flashing eyes gave the offender a good scolding. Then she arose and recommenced her active existence, to the amazement of her busband and friends. She has surely had a long rest from work, and Western life is plesanter now than m 1840. These singular instances m real life are analogous to one equally strange, which m romance has jnst been brought before f.he reading public. Hesther Dethridge, a character m Wilkie Collins novel, " Man and Wife," lived, according to the story, for years under a self-imposed silence — a sort of penance she made herself perform for a fearful crime,