EXTRAORDINARY ATTEMPT TO SELL A WIFE.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4540, 8 October 1875, Page 3

EXTRAORDINARY ATTEMPT TO SELL A WIFE.

(From the Wiyan Observer.) The following facts (which a correspondent vouches for as strictly correct) go to prove that the education movement has not yet penetrated into every nook and corner of Lancashire. A registrar of births, deaths, and marriages (especially the latter), not a hundred miles from. Wigan, was seated in Ms office lately, when his usual routine of duties was somewhat diversified by an application which the Kegistrar-General had unfortunately not provided for. Two men and a woman presented themselves before him, and after one of the men had (with the solemnity befitting such an occasion) paid to the other the sum of 4s. 6d., he was requested to let them " sign their hands to a bit of paper." In reply to his not unreasonable query as to the nature of this mysterious proceeding, one of the " high contracting parties " informed him that he had just sold his wife (the woman who accompanied them) to his friend, and all they required of him was to legalise the transaction. Great was the worthy registrar's amazement, but greater still was the chagrin and disappointment of the buyer and seller, in which, by the way, they were sympathised with by the fickle fair one, when they were told that such, a transaction could not be allowed. In vain did they cajole and entreat, and even the reiterated assertion of the obedient wife that she was quite willing, failed to molt the heart of the registi-ar. Here was a dilemma! The would-be Benedict had paid his money to the would-be bachelor, who, in language more forcible than polite, expressed his determination to stick to " th' brass." And so there the episode ended, and the parties took their departure.