HUSBANDS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 29, 27 February 1909, Page 4

HUSBANDS.

Husbands arc the natural product of most civilised countries. They are plentiful iu most of the United Slates of America, being scarcest in Utah and .Massachusetts, where each lady owns but a fraction of a husband, or none at all. Those owning no more Uiaii a morbid interest in a husband arc called old maids. Although the best husbands iu this country arc acknowledged by experts to be indigenous to the soil, those commanding the. highest, market prices arc Ihe imported varieties, because of their expensive labels. The Crown brand brings the largest figure. The husband is a wary and elusive animal, fleeing for safety at the first noise like a skirt to his lair in Clubs, ollices, and other remote caves of his habitat,' but he niay be cajoled forth by an appearance -of indifference on the part of the trapper, as his curiosity can always be aroused by the strange creature who could remain immune to his charms; after which he may be easily caught anywhere, in broad daylight (though a while night-light or mooncalciuiiu is .preferable), in a trap composed of frou-frou, talcum, golden locks, and llatterv. There is a tradition to the effect that the earliest husband-catcher was a clumsy contrivance made of line handsewing attached to a spinning-wheel, decorated witli home-made preserves put up in a syrup of sweet disposition and sealed in coiniinouseiisc jars.

Once secured with a matrimonial halter tied in a diamond hitch, the husband usually becomes ipjile tame, and will eat from the hand and sign cheques at will. There, are more Ulan liity-seven varieties of husbands at large and in j captivity, but they are hroaillv classed as good and bad, bv their respective owners or keepers called wives. Since the wife is .so constituted thai she can believe anything .she sets her mind to, she can easily persuade herself thai a bad husband is a good one and vice deuce for iiuaril-al happiness.

Tim American husband is called by his transatlantic compeers a beast of burden; to which he niav very justly retort that Ihe transatlantic husband i's a boast of prey, or otherwise, but always a beast, aiid'thal it's a While Man's Jinrdeii. anvwav. All of which proves that the highest grade husband extant has 'his permanent habitat iu these United States of America. Lilian Paschal Day, in Success.