BREACH OF PROMISE CASE

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume IX, Issue 998, 12 November 1881, Page 4

BREACH OF PROMISE CASE

It would be interesting (says “ Civis” in the Otago Daily Times) to know what it is that makes the revelations of a breach-of promise case amusing. In making love, a man does only what every other human creature does, or would do if opportunity arose; why should bis love-making constitute him a fool ? The innocent endearments which pass between lovers are amongst the most serious things in life, and they happen as strictly according to law of nature as the billings and cooings, the twitterings and prancings of birds on the bough. When these tender nothings are described in Court, why should they seem ridiculous ? Partly, perhaps, because in a breach-of-promise case the courtship has obviously come to grief ; but that is not the only reason. The love-letters of the most faithful pair, if read in their presence to an assemblage of their friends, would be equally good fun. The young gentleman home for the holidays, who has sufficiently tested the surprise-power of a tin tack on the seat of a chair, and of gunpowder in the coal-scuttle, should get hold of one of his elder sister’s letters to the “ fellow ” she is engaged to, and try the effect of reading it at the breakfast table ! More cheeks than one would tingle as the result of that experiment, I guess; and young hopeful would have the opportunity of reflecting, tearfully, that the delicacy of a girl’s handwriting is clue to the weight of her “flipper.” All England has been laughing lately over a breach of promise case in which a curate named Fry, for neglecting to marry a Miss Lamb—-a young lady of over 40 summers —was cast in damages of £lOOO. The mutual passion at one time existing between the tender Fry and the gentle Lamb was attested by a correspondence 2f miles long, the reading of extracts from which produced “roars of laughter,” principally at the curate’s expense. He had promised to make Miss L. “junior assistant curate,” which, considering the fact that she was 10 years his senior, is a sad example of the recklessness of lovers’ vows. He counselled her, when marking her linen, to make the L so that it could readily be converted into F, as he explained it, from Lamb into Lamb and Fry. (Great laughter). He wrote a poem of 11 stanzas on a pair of socks she knitted for him, and painted an effigy of “ two doves seated on an oak,” respecting which he remarked that one was seated above the other, indicating rule, power, and authority. In short, the curate seems to have made love with “ forty-parson power, ’’ and the only feature in the case not amusing is the verdict, which certainly seems a tragic close to so much good comedy. It is a verdict which to the unfortunate Fry at any rate is no laughing matter, and it has probably carried dismay to the breast of every curate in England. The path of a curate would seem to lead through perilous places. Spinsters of mature experience knit his socks and work his slippers, kiss him, as the gushing Lamb did the Rev. Mr. Fry whenever he took off her skates in winter, draw’ him into a correspondence 2-J miles long, and then, when he awakes from “ love’s young dream,” sue him for breach, cover him with ridicule, and get £lOOO damages. “ I won’t be a nun,” which seems to have been Miss Lamb’s motto, will have to be changed, if this sort of thing goes on, into a song for the other sex —“ I won’t be a curate.”