AMERICAN GOSSIP.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2832, 22 April 1882, Page 2

AMERICAN GOSSIP.

The special correspondentof the “ New Zealand Herald” at San Francisco has the following sketches relating to two important epochs of life : A BABY BRIDEGROOM. It is the fashion for women to marry very' young in some parts of this overfree country. I know many ladies who were wed at fourteen, and even thirteen years, which I consider a very disgusting state of affairs. But so it is. However they generally tie themselves to old men, or, at least, men many years their senior. Several exceptions to this rule have cropped up lately. A boy of fifteen has recently married a girl of thirteen. They took another boy and his father into their plans, when a clergyman was sent for, who made them one flesh for the sum of a dollar and a half, which the groom bad in his jacket pocket. Now, can you imagine anything more reprehensible than an ordained clergyman committing an act that is almost a sin for so small a sum as the above? How dare ho do it, any way—marry two little children, and ho a man with a family ? Well, there is another case in point, where a girl of fourteen has had two husbands. She was married at eleven, and divorced from the first man to marry her stepfather. The march of intellect goes on with rapid strides, truly, and there is no accounting for tastes. Now I am always wanting my grown-up daughters to marry, but they laugh the idea to scorn, which, so far, is good, for, oh, how I should hate to be a grandmother 1 No granny for me, thank you ; not until I grow old and grey, which I am not yet, thank the Pates. Still, if half a dozen small creatures were crying “ granma ” after me, it would make me old, though never a line crosses the brown, and where is the woman who wants to grow old ? Do you know ? I do not. A FASHIONABLE FUNERAL. The death of Mrs Newlands, daughter of ex-senator Sharon, who has often figured in my letters, and sister of Lady Flora Hesketh, whom you also know, if you keep my gossip in remembrance, cast a deep gloom over the community. She was a young lady much beloved and esteemed in social life, rich and happy. But Death spares none, and giving birth to her third child, under a painful operation, she died. The funeral was quite an ovation. That splendid tribute that is always paid to the dead, who, while living, are little thought of, was rendered to her in full. The body was laid in an exquisite casket, dressed in white satin draperies, the mountings being of solid silver. As to the floral decorations, the room in which the body lay was like one vast conservatory, while the coffin itself was covered with emblems of white blooms, the costliest and rarest. Twelve negro waiters from her father’s hotel (the Palace) bore the coffin to the church, while twelve pall-bearers preceded it, comprising the highest men in the city. The two little orphaned girls followed the coffin, dressed in rich white satin without a particle of black about them. Them came the widower and an immense cortege behind. After the services for the dead were concluded, the twelve negroes fell back, and the twelve white gentlemen pall-bearers carried the coffin back to the hearse. From thence tho dead lady was taken to the cemetery, and pretty, unaffected Mrs Newlands passed away out of the minds of the people, and to-day is I suppose, almost forgotten ; for after all our deaths are but a nine days’ wonder, and then good-bye.