A DISAPPOINTED BRIDEGROOM.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2461, 7 February 1881, Page 3

A DISAPPOINTED BRIDEGROOM.

Among the goods consigned to order by a vessel which recently arrived in Port Nicholson, says the “New Zealand

Times,” was a young lady of two-and-twenty summers. This young lady had, through circumstances which need not be inquired into, become betrothed in Enghmd to a well-to-do settler in the Timaru district, and bad at an appointed time, been shipped off uj l, his English friends to join her intended husband,, Whether it was through ignorance of New Zealand geography, or from the fact that just at that time no vessel was sailing for a nearer port to Timaru than Wellington, is not known, hut the fact remains that the lady was put on board a Wellington-bound vessel and in due course arrived here. The relatives of the intended husband had also taken advantage of the opportunity to send on with the bride-elect a number of packages filled with various articles of domestic use, including drapery, for their colonial friend. The husband-ex-pectant was exceedingly impatientforthe advent of the youug lady, and long before the arrival of the vessel here, the agent was telegraphed to several times a week, asking if there was any news and when she might be expected, being always urgently requested to reply at once by “collect” telegram. At last the vessel came, and the agent was prepared to forward on the young lady to Timaru, for which purpose he had received £5 from the eager settler, which £5 was duly handed to the bride intended. She, however declined to travel on without first enjoying a short period of rest here, and during that period the agent learnt that on the voyage out the young lady—who is posessed of great personal attractions—had formed an attachment with the second mate of the vessel, and that they had utilised the £5 in getting married on landing. Here was a pretty go ! The days passed on, the anxious agriculturist in the South telegraphing daily to the agent—“ Where is Miss Miss ?” &c., questions which the agent for some time evaded, until evasion was no longer possible, when he telegraphed the facts of the ease. How these were received by the disappointed waiter-for-a-wife is not known, and the imagination is left free to form its own conception. Meanwhile the newly - made husband got discharged from bis post of second mate, the wife being about the ship so much during the honeymoon as to interfere with the preformances of of his duties, and as neither of them had means, and the £5 was quickly gone, they arc now in distress, and the husband yesterday consulted Mr Shaw as to how he should find subsistence —but the Magistrate was unable to advise him. Thus the matter stands at present, and it will be seen that the prospect of “all ending happily,” as is the case in the orthodox novel, is somewhat remote, as the husband’s profession precludes his continuing long with his wife, and it is even possible that, unless the husband that-was-to-havc-been should philosophically wash his hands of the whole affair as a bad job, the husband-that-is may find him curiously inquisitive as to what has become of the goods consigned from Home with the fickle young woman. — “ Press.”