A MARRIAGE BENEFIT SOCIETY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XVI, Issue 273, 16 November 1881, Page 4

A MARRIAGE BENEFIT SOCIETY.

This is the latest novelty from Phiiadephia. The City of Brotherly Live ccniains a number of young men inclined towards matrimony, but who find a difficulty, cot so much in obtaiaing a female companion who shares their views, os the wherewithal to provide the roof to shelter her when foond. A bouse requires to be furnished, and furniiure, no matter how simple, costs njony dollars in a country that icsists on protecting the upholsterer. Accordingly, with that practical tendency which distioguishei the Pennsylvania, this Marriage Bent fit Society has been formed. It consists of bachelors over twenty years of age, each of whom pays an entrance fee and an annual »übscription. Then, when any one of them desirei to get married, be receives an advance, proportionate to bia «üb§cription, lowards the establishment of his household. Whether this advance is a free gift or a loan payable by instal. ments is not very clear. But even in the latter case it will be less burdensome to liquidate than one contracted with the upholsterer or the moneylender. On the other hand, any actuary will be able tj calculate the chances which the society would ran of having to pay a dower to the benedict. Many a prudent member will subscribe year after year before he is eble to eam an income whioh ecables him to marry, and in not a few instances the society will Eevtr be troubled by bis demands. He may decide to remain single, he may discover, after veers of waiting, that there is bleeeednees in bachelorhood; or—he may die; in either of which c&ses the society will prcfis by his unclaimed fees and subscripiions. and, as happens with insurance clubs established among professional men, ihe marrying members will benefit by !he prudence, the ill-luck, or the prematurely closed careers of the unmarried ones. An angry wife chased her tippling husband out of a saloon at Mouomonee, "Winconsin late one night, but lost sight of him, and went home alone. He was the next morning found drowned ia a deep well, into the unguarded mouth of which he had fallen in his hasty flight. At a recent ttmperanee meeting in London Joseph Cook s»id, »I think it ia beyond depute among the scholars of the first rank that at the Passover the wine used was nonintoxicating, and that our Lord instituted the supper with such wine." Those who fancy the manager of a ptper is making a fortune when they pay 3s for an inch advertisement should read the following :—The cost of advertising a prospectus for ten days in four London dailies varies between £800 and £1000