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Southland Times, Issue 1233, 5 April 1870, Page 4

Maeetdtg in; Haste. — Le Siecle, speaking of the girl fairs in America, gives tie origin oi them as follows : — The first' English settlers who established themselves at Jamestown, in America, were all bachelors. The treasurer of the \ Immigration Company, Sandys, thotight with reason, that the best method of fixing the colonists, was to give them the benefits of' family life, and resolved to furnish wives for them. He accordingly 'expedited 90 young girls from England to Virginia, each one furnished ■with a certificate of good character. On their;, arrival at Jamestown, they were submitted to the public inspection of the woid'd-be benedicts.' The girls were not constrained to marry against their wish, buti;he whole .of them entered into the bonds of matrimony within twehty--four hours," thus proving that the cause of success in all things may be found in hitting the tight time for operation!. Each of thehusbarids had to pay the ' passage of the girl he had chosen for his wife, and whichwas fixed at 12AM. ' of tobacco. The o treasurer entered upon a second speculation, and sent over a second batch of females, putting their passage down at the^ncreased price of 150ib. of tobacco, to be paid by the fortunate husband, reasoning that a few pounds of the weed, more oriels, would be of no account when the-hear^ had spoierii The bachelors of Jamestown' paid the 150 ft. of tobacco as the price of their happiness with the greatest alacrity. Thus the first Eiiro- " families were established in V rgihia, between the years 1616 and 1618, and such was the origin of the girl fairs in America, which institution has ' been handed down to our own time as regards America, but w^th the difference that now-a-days there is no dearth of the fair sex. English Life. — A recent number of tliQ Spectator contains the following:— English life certainly contains enough of striking contrast, and picturesque antithesis. Consider only these two characteristic phases of it, both occcurring within a single week — and both in some sense eagerly watched by English societyArchbishop Manning in his purple and ermine in the pro-Cathedral afKensington, discoursing last Sunday to Catholics and Protestants of the Pope's authority, and obligation to resist "liberalism, progress, and the modern civilization ;" arid, again, Mr Dickens, high priest of the bran-new religion of the hour, inaugurating' the present session of the Midland institute at Birmingham on the previous Monday, and discoursing with a scarcely less authoritative_and dogmatic air,, to the thronging crowds of that mixed audience, on the falsehood, or perhaps meaninglessness, of the accusation brought against our age that it is a materialist age, and: even intimating his shrewd suspicion that the 'electric telegraph and the steam, engine were among those characteristic revelations of the divine mind which our Lord withheld from his disiples on the eve of His cruxifixion because they were too weak to bear them ! Both are thoroughly characteristic phenomena of the age, and neither of them are par. ticularly encouraging to those who care td see faith and the forces of modern civilization in their proper relative places. A lady who refused to give anything after hearing a charity sermon/ had her pocket picked as Bhe was leaving the church. On making the discovery, she said, "The priest could not find the way to my pocket, but the devil did."