Mail Order Marriage

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 744, 17 August 1929, Page 5

Mail Order Marriage

A WIFE FOR FIVE DOLLARS How the U.S.A. Does It WHEN a New .Zealand bachelor is tired of tlie single life, he simply inserts an advertisement in the daily papers saying he “wishes to meet lonely, refined girl, cheerful companion, view matrimony,” and then sits back to await the deluge of applicants.

In reply to a question by Mr. R. McIveen (Wellington South), in the House recently, the Minister of Justice, the Hon. T. M. Wilford, said no complaints had been made regarding newspaper advertisements stating that tradesmen were desirous of meeting young girls. There was no law against such advertisements, and legislation would be required to make the publication of addresses of advertisers compulsory. But in the great United States they are more up to date. There they have newspapers devoted solely to bringing the charms of lonely girls before the eyes of prospective husbands. The official paper of the Standard Correspondence Club has just been received at The Sun Office, and its pages make interesting reading. It is published by Mr. J. W. Schlosser, of Grays Lake, Illinois, and is a fourpage paper. On the top left corner of the front page is a line stating that “marirage is a golden knot tied by an angel’s hand.” On the opposite side the proprietor piously observes that "a moment of happiness is worth a pot of gold.” Thirty' years of reliable and satisfactory dealings are behind him, says Mr. Schlosser, and business (s ‘‘sacredly confidential.” “I have a very large number of very desirable ladies who have trusted me to find for them suitable husbands,” says the philanthropic Mr. Schlosser.

He gives a list that sounds like a bargain sale advertisement, showing the fortunes of some of the lonely girls on his waiting list. He is careful to say they “inform” him that their financial standing is as listed. The bargains range from a widow, aged 39, with 100,000 dollars, down to a 21-year-old brunette with a meagre 25,000 dollars. The paper is devoted to paragraphs extolling the virtues and showing photographs displaying the beauties of the lonely husband seekers. Their appeals for companionship are pitiful. Says one, writing from Palmer, Tennesse, “Am just a little country girl. At times I get lonely and long for a congenial companion. I live in a community where opportunities to meet young men are very meagre, hence I resort to . this plan in hopes that through this channel I may meet some honourable young man. I am 23 years of age and would welcome correspondence from honourable, sincere gentleman under 34, who would be interested in a girl of my standard. See photo above.” As a further testimonial a young lady says she Is a Christian, probably to assure possible applicants that she is not a Dancing Dervish or a Zaroastrian.

A charming little wavy-haired widow stares forth from another page. The paragraph below her picture says, with delicious vagueness, that she “is a Widow by death, no children, alone,

and. oh, so lonely. "Would marry at an early date if possible.” Another girl from Charleston. Virginia, down in the cotton belt, says she is very tender-hearted and would love a man with her whole heart and soul. “I am considered handsome,” she asserts somewhat defiantly. But she made the mistake of inserting her photograph, which gives her the lie direct. From Benton Harbour, Michigan, a widow of French descent sends out a piteous appeal for a life companion. She would not object to a widower with children as she dearly loves them. She has red hair and admits 46 summers. Her photograph shows her to he about 60, but the pill is sugared by the fact that she has an income of 3,000 dollars a year. From Utica, New York, a German Jewess, with 50,000 dollars hard cash, and prospects of a further 100,000 dollars, sighs for the wedded state. She is also a widow by death, and is 40 years of age. “I am five feet two inches in height,” she says, “and weigh 175ib. I long for sympathy.” She is too shrewd to insert her photograph. And so they cry their wares. Scores and scores of them, on the eternal feminine hunt to capture a man by any means. And Mr. Schlosser requires only a miserable two dollars to put one in touch with his choice, and a further three dollars when Cupid’s knot is tied. It is scarcely credible. A number of testimonials from happy benedicts who have found soulmates through the offices of the Standard Correspondence Club are enclosed, showing the satisfaction to be obtained as a result of courting by correspondence. Mr. Schlosser’s concluding appeal to bachelors would frighten any man into marriage. Listen to it-' “Whether you do business with me or not, accept my advice as a friend, and marry. You do not know what it is to live alone, uncared for, unknown, when old age overtakes you. Solitude fills one with horrible agony. Solitude at home by the fireside at night is so profound, so sad. The silence of the room in which one dwells alone, is not alone silence of the body, but silence about the soul, with neither father nor mother, sister or brother, wife or children—nothing but a wasted past to look back upon; nothing but a lonely, painful deathbed and an unwept and unhonoured grave in the future. When one is old it is well to have a loving companion and to have children, and to live so rbat when in the evening of life the light of heaven streams down through the gathering mists of death, you may have a peaceful and joyous entrance into that world of blessedness, where the great riddle of life, whose meaning you can only guess at here below, will be unfurled to you in that peaceful and joyful land.” That’s how they do it in America!