THE SHAH AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF POLYGAMY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 236, 1 October 1873, Page 4

THE SHAH AS THE REPRESENTATIVE OF POLYGAMY.

(Fron. f/-e Sale-day JReoieie.) The reason of the welcome given to the Shah by the leisured classes is no less clear. Society is governed by the necessity of pvovidirg occupation for its unmarried members. Unmarried women form tbe majority of every household, and nothing checks lheir steady incre :se fiom decade to decode and from year to year. Food is plentiful j neither famines nor foyers decimate them; Maltbus ia not read. To the elder succeed the youuger, equally healthy and good-natured, equally unable t*) " dress on £15 a year as ladies." London has grown unmanageable. The number of pei sons who accept are out of all proportion to the number of those who give, nor does society sympathise with the difficulties nnd disappointments of those who endeavor to provide for iis amusement. Ifc is iherefore only natural that the mother of a large and increasing family should find her symbol in the Shah. Just as Dr Primrose repreß2nted the quintessence of monogamy, so lhe Sbah represents the polygamic element, and suggests the one conceivable method of providing for onr surplus female population. The politician may see in him a firm ally, the financier the gain of new concessions, but the mother will dream of fresh woods and of untrodden pastures, where the younger members of her family may browse in peace. Let the sceptic go to a London breakfast. The road is lined with carriages containing three or four women in each. With the perception of two policemen not a man is to be seen. The host has gone ont of town for the day, and the hostess is in the garden eating bread and honey under a tree ; the lawn is covered with gown3 displaying a combination of colors which, even withoat the intervention of the Shah, would make the season of 1873 a remarkable one. Mankind is represented by the author or an editor, four boys up for a cricket match, and a friend who is paying a visit. The men who ought to be there are spurring little ponies or shooting pigeons — noble pursuits through which an outlet is found for that surplus of physical energy which we are told cannot be restrained, and which has made England what it is. If the day is a wet one the entertainment is turned into a tragedy. The rain drops through tho leaves, and the guests are obliged to crowd into drawingrooms. There is a smell of wet clothes, a cry for carriages not forthcoming, as the coachmen have not finished their brenkfast at the neighboring public-house. Nor is the eveuing free from similar troubh.3. There are girls enough for twenty balls, and men enough for two. The ballrooms have about forty women in them, and three fathers who are ou their way either to the House of Commons or their beds. Those well-known faces fulfilling the functions of ball-room signs, beaming with a settled placid instinct, have already procured their seats for the evening. By the aide of each a daughter stands, just come out, wondering whether the one man ehe knows in London, fed with frequent dinners -at her father's house, and who never fails ber, will danca with her this evening. Her fate is to stand there. He has gone first to the ball where the Royalties are, and then to the one which has the best supper. The room's -' untrampled floor ""is very sticky, and at half-past twelve the host is angry, and commits the fatal mistake of imagining he has some jurisdiction in his own house. Thirty more men, it is true, bavo come; but six do not dance, and four are at supper with the one young married woman whom the hostess asked. At half-past two the ball is over, and chaperons wake from their dreams of Teheran, and to the fact that the world is vanity. Such are too frequently the results of an expenditure of three or four hundred pounds; redress is needed, and the Shah is its symbol. Among the storieß lately current, in which we place full reliance in common with the others we have heard, is one to the effect that the Shah has met an ancient dowager in order to discuss the question in all its bearings. The interview was most satisfactory, and a concession was granted, wbich, though upsetting to some extent the present relations between the sexes, is likely to remove all the difficulties against which society has now to contend. When the terms of the concession are made public, we shall comment more fally upon them.