HEIR HUNTING.

Southland Times, Volume 2, Issue 90, 15 September 1863, Page 3

HEIR HUNTING.

(Fxota the Saturday Beview.)

' The suffering, >yhich people who have anything .that can be dunned gui of them by impbrtunity.are condemned to undergo mt the hand* of those who are impudent enough to dun them, have Jong been the suhject of general commiseration. The system of competitive examination is believed io owe its origin chiefly to the anxiety of statesmen to rid themselves of the intolerable throng of applicants who were gathered round them by the hopes of patronage. The Mendicity Society owes its existence to ' the absolute necessity of providing some protection against the swarm of beggars whom the merest rumor will draw round any man who has had the weakness to be guilty of an act of benevolence. It is said that a distinguished philanthropist, who has had the misfortune to make his name famous by an' act of singular munificence, has been fairly driven into a foreign country by tho levee of piteous cases, that has taken to assembling round the street door. There are betterdressed beggars also, who do not beg less valiantly, though it is for other things. The great people who have the reputation of giving agreeable or splendid parties are severe sufferers from the imperturbable assurance with which those who are lal'o - ing up the lower rounds ofthe fashionable .ladder petition for a card. But of all the sufferers of this kind, there is no set ot people so deserving of pity as elder sons. The mendicants by whom they are beset are not ofthe outcast class, who can begot rid of by an appeal to a police magistrate or a Mendicity officer ; nor is the favor for \ which they are importuned a very small matter, Turbaned dowagers, of awful presence and remoi-seless tongues, laden witb unmarketable daughters, and witli the word "intentions"* trembling on their lips, are the lazzaroni by whom their footsteps are dogged ; and, like their Neapolitan prototypes, these persecutors are always ready to turn to and abme their victim ; if he refuses them the trifling dole of title and estates for which they are asking. Happily for them -elves, the hunted animals in question are comparatively rare. London ball-rooms and country houses are tlie spots in which their persecutors generally find them ; but, like the Alpine chamois, excessive hunting has made them scarce in their ancient haunts. They survive, however, in sufficient numbers to enable a careful observer lo watch their habits in every stage of their troubled existence. The change that comes over them in the course of it, is both striking and melancholy. The length of time during which any one of them has been the object for which some dowager hns spread ber toils may in general be inferred from the extent of timidity and caution he displays. On his first entrance into society, the elder son is cheerful, conversible, ancl trustful in his manner. lie betrays no consciousness that his every gesture is watched, or that every phrase that falls front* him is carefully analyzed, to find whether a latent or embryo proposal can be detected in its composition. He does not even know his enemies as yet. He will talk and laugh with a dowager, and listen to her compliments, and accept her invitations, ;md will speak of her to his fiiends as though she were nothing else to him but a rather ugly old woman, with a large developement of skirt and head dress. But the great sign that the elder son is still enjoying the bliss of youthful ignorance is the ease and composure with which lie pract c s the manly accomplishment of flirting. He will plunge into a family of maiden daughters, if pheasants should lead him there, without a tinge of fear. He will sit by a 3'oung lady at dinner, if chance should thrust him into such a position, and his appetite will never be blunted by a thought upon tbe dangers that surround him. Nay, he will devote himself to hetail the evening, will bank with her at the round game, and turn over her leaves at the pianoforte ; and at the end of it all hewill hand a candle to her mother, without a suspicion that those maternal eyes are already glancing at him that question about " intentions, " which in a few days will send him a scarred and breathless fugitive from the hall-door. Very different is the bearing of the elder son who has learnt wisdom in the bitter school of experience. He no longer ventures willingly into danger. Alter a score of hairbreadth escapes, like the partridges in November, he is decidedly wild. He is mentally scarred all over with the wounds he has received. Good-natured friends have confided to him more than once that Lady So-and-So is saying all over London that •«he has behaved infamously ;" and his manner shows that he is no longer insensible to the constructions wliich may b? placed on the ordinary politenesses which are only practised with impunity by youngei sons. Something of his former self still remains to him as long as only married women are in the room. He speaks and laughs in this case, sits down wherever he is inclined, and does not shrink even from a tetcatete. But the moment the form of a marriageable female darkens the door-way, a cloud comes over him. If he can, lie flees from" the open plain by the fire, and hides himself in distant corners or behind impregnable writing-tables. If he cannot make his escape to a place of securi'y, he throws himself upon the defensive by miking hard love to the nearest married lady, or l>y taking a sudden "but absorbing interest hi the agricultural prospects of a country neighbor. Sometimes hard fate forces him to sit through a whole meal next to the object of his terrors, and then it is very pretty to watch his coy and maidenly embarrassment. He is evidently puzzling himself the whole time how to draw the narrow and imperceptible line which, in the case of elder sons, separates rudeness from love-making. He is calculating how many observations upon the weather it will be safe to make, ancl whether he can dare 'to desert that innocent subject of criticism without exposing himself to the risk of being supposed to hf ye " behaved infamously" six months hence. His manner becomes very like that of a witness who has been put forwa-d 10 prove an alibi, and is undergoing a severe crossoxamination. At last, of course, he attains to a wonderful dexterity in the use af a glacial politeness, in which nothing matrimonial can be scented even by the keenest dowager nose. It is not all elder sons, however, who attain to Ibis conversational agility. _ Many are taken in the process of learning how to elude their pursuers. In spite of all his care, many a one finds himself at last undergoing that dreaded interview in Avhich the dexterous dowager drops in her last harpoon, by telling him in a broken voice, from behind her pocket. handkerchief, that she fears her dear daughter's peace of mind is gone for ever. Conscious of their weakness, tbe eider sons seldom mn too close to danger. They prefer to flock together out of its reach. Just as a shoal of herrings indicates the neighborhood of a dog-fish, and as the terror among the small birds betrays

the presence of a hawk in the air above, so if you see a nrthber of elder sons congregated at one end of a breakfast or luncheon table, you may be quite sure there is a young lady at the other. After a time, this phase too, in the elder son's career, passes away. The dowagers whose toils he has constantly eluded, give him up in despair at last. He is beyond the age when he can be expected to believe in the fracture of a young lady's peace of mind; and it is of no use a*-king for intentions, when there are no intentions forthcoming. Nothing remains of his many hazards and narrow deliverances but a. quarrel with two or three families to whom he is supposed to have behaved infamously. He has not resumed, however, the unsuspectinggaiety of youth. He has acquired a precautionary habit of sheering oif at the approach of a young lady to which he probably adheres. He has also contracted a practice of keeping his hand in his pockets, which has atracted the observation of the naturalists by whom the species has been studied. The reason is] supposed by many to be analogous to that which induces the Persians who live in disturbed districts to cut their beards short, in order that tbeir adversaries may have nothing to take hold of. This explanation, however, requires to be verified It is needless to say that, in this advanced stage of elder-sonship, he does not dream of marria»e. ' propose i tobin* v aid be like proposing amalgamation to Federals and Confederates, or to Poles and Russians. A long course of social hardships and privations has made such an idea abhorrent to him. The result — at least those results which we can examine without lifting up the veil of our decorous social system — are curious enough, nofc only with respect to the elder sons, strictly so called, bufc with respect to all who are in any degree worth being hunted down. Refined female society they will, as a rule, have, though they oannot have it in tlie conversation of young ladies, the greater number of whom are brought up to look on them with a purely commercial eye. The demand from such a quarier is pretty sure to create a supply ; and as the young unmarried ladies are shut out by the mamseuvres of their mothers, it must be furnished by those who have removed that disqualification. Snakecharming is a perilous amusement except with snakes whose fangs are drawn. The arrangement is, no doubt, a very pleasant one for the young men. Married women are in themselve*? more practised, and therefore, more agreeable talkers tban young ladies ; and even if they were not, a frien-l-■=hip which does not lead up to a question about intentions is necessarily a very much pleasanler and more comfortable kind of intimacy than one that does. But ifc is not to be expected that the prevalence of such a state of things should be free from consequences of a more serious kind upon the morality and the repute of the classes among whom it exists. For tlie present, lite gameappears to go on merrily. Skating on thin ice is a delightful amusement until the ice bronks — nnd, perhaps, for some time after. But if the pastime should result in extensive scandal, no small share of the blame will belong to the dowager-system, and especially to the vigorous practitioners who have pushed it to such a length in our day.