A TALL MARRIAGE.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VI, Issue 234, 3 October 1871, Page 4

A TALL MARRIAGE.

A marriage in very "high" life was celebrated in St. Martin's-in-the-Fields* London, on Saturday morning, June 18, and is thus described by the Pall Mall Gazette : — A marriage between two persons, whose combined height — to use the arithmetic method generally adopted by newspapers when the bride and bridegroom are of advanced age or of particularly tender y ears — would approximate to that of two lamp-posts placed one. upon "the top of the other, is an event which cannot be properly appreciated save by such an enterprising soul as Barnum. Something similar may be common enough in Patagonia, but in this country it is an incident almost as rare and interesting as the birth at the Zoological GardeßS of an infant hippopotamus. For the celebration of the ceremony it was only right that the Royql parish church of |St. .Martin's-in-the-Fields should be the place chosen ; and those happy beings who this morning saw sixteen feet of humanity made one flesh: will be- able -with reason to- boast to their posterity that : they were: witnesses of a sublimer sight, or, as Americans would say,. ca- taller spectacle: ithan ; any Eoyal family in the inhabited world could offer. Giants are •' known to be weak, especially in the knees, and from the 'days of Polyphemus ihey have always been very susceptible of the tender passion. But poor Polyphemus could cast but. :j a single sheep's. eye,, and could not find anybody t taller /than-,.* Galatea upon whom' to Vast '"ft.' i Our giant, who was this mornjn^ married ,ip oue t! Eoyal parish was more fortunate. He and his giantess met at a public exhibition, and loved. The giant proposed and was accepted, and this morning Miss Anna r Swatt, «fthe tallest person known' to exist, '^as joined together in wedlock' witbCfipi Martin Van Buret* Bates, whose Christian name might

have suggested the idea of conferring such distinction :as has been conferred,, on St. Martin's* in-the-Fields. The service was read amid a reverential scene of whispering, giggling, climbing over pews ; and when it was over, the usual signing of names appeared to occupy much more than the legitimate time. As the reasons could not be the length of the names, which by no means correspond with that of the owners, one is driven to the conclusion that the children, of Anakim. like some other great folks, find writing a laborious and difficult operation. At last, however, the pair of Titans emerged from the vestry, and strode arm in arm, followed by a sympathising " combination," and accompanied by the strains of the Wedding March, to meet the plaudits of the outside crowd. At 11.15 all was over. It were rash to dip into the future ; but one cannot help seeing that if, when giants marry giantesses, the result is giants and giantesses, there has this day been taken a step which will "ruin the business."