Startling Occurrence at a Wedding Party.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 223, 8 October 1887, Page 2

Startling Occurrence at a Wedding Party.

A wedding party which was revelling in a restaurant at St. Mamie" (the Paris correspondent of the " Daily Telegraph" says) had a terrible fright. The bride and bridegi oom, tradespeople of the neighbourhood, were, after a good dinner, waltzing and polking with their relatives and friends. Midnight was fast approaching, and the fun, as is usual at thiß sort of entertainment, was of a most lively, not to 1 say boisterous, kind, when suddenly a flower-girl made her appearance on the scene and offered bouquets for sale. The ladies and gentlemen of the company, taken with her winning ways, eagerly bought up her nosegays, and at last the girl walked up to the happy couple to present them, as everyone imagined, with the prettiest bouquet of the lot. What wap the consternation of the bystanders when the young woman, by a rapid movement, drew a phial from her basket and threw its contents into the faces of the newly-married pair. The roars of laughter gave place to shrill screams. The bridemaidt} fainted, and their attendant swains, with horror and dismay depicted on their countenances, strove to bring them round. The bride and bridegroom, surrounded by their parents and the elders of the party, fancied that their last hour had come, and, believing that they were irretrievably disfigured, opened and shut their eyes to find out if they had been bereft of sight. A few of the hangers-on, rushing up to the flower-girl, who had converted all their enjoyment and festivity into anguish and mourning, held her fast pending the arrival of the police. In a few moments the bride's father, coming up, took the girl into a corner, and learned from her lips that she had been for three years the mistress of his neTr son-in-law, that their intimacy had been productive of the usual result, and, in short, that she had been basely deserted by her lover. Such was her story. In the meantine a doctor who had been hastily summoned pronounced that the " vitriol " was the most innocent of liquids. The flower-girl, surprised and much put out, declared that she had bought it at a chemist's shop hard by. A policeman was immediately despatched to the shop in question, but soon ascertained that the woman had merely been supplied with tinted water, as her manner was so strango that it had aroused suspicion.

Mme. Herodinoff, a Russian medical student of the Paris sohools, took her doctor's degree the other day with honours.