EXTRAORDINARY WEDDING GIFTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 258, 22 March 1913, Page 1 (Supplement)

EXTRAORDINARY WEDDING GIFTS

I I'XTKUKSTINi; PARTICULARS. Probably no bride who ever wore Hie orange blossom had ii more remarkable array of <; tlian Alius Alice Roosevelt. whose marriage to Mr. Longworth a few years ago almost, the entire civilised world conspired to lienor. Day after day they poured into the White House, nrttil the number rose to 4(10(1. and their value to at least a million dollars. From China the Dowager-Kni-press sent a large chest packed with rainbow silks, antiques and treasures of art : the Kmpress of Austria did homage with a gorgeous diamond pendant; and Kaiser Wilhelm's gift was a bracelet ablaze with gems. Silver candlesticks and miracles of embroidery were Japan's Imperial dower; and priceless (lobelins tapestries came from France. Vessels of gold and silver, chains of diamonds and pearls, richly-gammed bracelets, brooches and rings flashed their maiiyhued fires in bewildering profusion, the tribute of the world, '"from China to Peru." Mr. Roosevelt's roughriders gave their commander's daughter a handsome silver service: the present of the officers of the United States Army was a full-size working model in 22-carat gold of a Krag-Jorgenson rifle, with the bride's initials wrought in diamonds on the stock, and a supply of gold bullets as ammunition; while from Japan came a marvellous butterfly-shaped fan. on the wrapper of which lie was scrawled, in a childish hand. "Clad he ain't 110 duke!" MAMMOTH POTATOES. But none of all these presents gave the bride more pleasure than the tribute 1 of her father's humble friends, cowboys and farmers, whose modest gifts ranged from potatoes to pumpkins. One farmer from Kansas sent a sack of mammoth turnips; another, from South Dakota, contributed giant potatoes, any one of which was a sufficient meal for a hungry Irishman; and from Virginia came a large consignment of apples, with pumpkins galore "for Mrs. Longworth's winter pies." But. in spite of her array of turnips and potatoes, pumpkins and beetroot. Miss Alice cannot claim the palm for unconventional bridal gifts, for which there is a host of claimants, including a well-known British sportsman, who recently returned to England for his nuptials from a holiday in the Rocky Mountains, bringing with him surely the most remarkable trophy ever offered to a bride. With his own hand lie had killed 19 immense rattlesnakes, from whose tails he had removed the rattles, to tlie number of 213. The skins were taken to a furrier, who fashioned from them a brilliant girdle, taking a small section from each skin: and the edges of the girdle were trimmed with the rattles, "after tile fashion of jet beads." Another sportsman, equally original, provided his bride with a unique wedding robe of bears' skins, the spoil of a hunting expedition, while around her neek j she wore a necklace of bears' leeih. ! OIFTS OF ANIMALS. . When, not long ago, Fraulien Becker was lea to the altar by llerr Schneider, of Merlin, the bride's mother, the proprietor of a travelling menagerie, made the young people happy by the present of an elephant, a lion, and a selection of other wild animals, to form the nucleus of a rival show. And when M. Souverin. | proprietor of the well-known Russian | paper, Xovoe Vremya. gave his daughter in marriage to M. Miasniedotl'-lvanoff,son i f the Minister of Ways and Coinmunihe arranged that she should "enjo \ henceforth Ihe daily profits" of one j • :i t i. advertisement pages of his newspaper. As the page yields a weekly revenue of £OO, lie thus provided his daught■ v with the handsome dower of • •"'ini.i ml more a vear.

Mr. Thomas Whenman. parish clerk of ' ■ Wick, was in no position to ••' i'c such a provision for his daughter <in iipr wedding a few years ago: hut at It ast hi- dowry was equally original, for M consisted of a thousand threepennvi,i;s. (lie fruits of many years of loving hoarding;. And ahout the same time we read that Mr. Metcalfe, a North Country ''■ inner, presented hU only daughter on her wedding day with IS Tine eows, one for each vpar of her life: and supplemented this handsome gift with another of '23 sheep, the number of his son-in-law's years. A MATRIMONIAL HACK. That Mr. Harper, of Illinois, was a sportsman lie proved when, :i few years ago. lie made it known lliat the first of his three bn xom daughters t,o find a husband should have as a dowry Iter weight in gold; the -eeond. her weight in silver: and the la-t of the tria her weight in eopper. Within six months number one <|U:\lilieil for a siihstantial dowry _of C 8400: a few months later number two in the matrimonial race was put on the scales, and her equivalent in silver. l'li-10. was her port inn: while the laggaril in the race, who was also the heaviest. had to wait twu year*- before she received her bronze equivalent of Cili!

When the son of a well-known London merchant was on the eve of his wedding a short time ago, he not unnaturally expected a substantial cheque from his father as a contribution towards the cost of housekeeping. Conceive his disappointment when he received in its place a shabby-looking volume of few pages, labelled ".Vote Book," with the parental blessing. His disgust, however, was short-lived, when he discovered that each page of the despised note book was a bank of England note for CIO. with the exception of the "2otll and ."iOtli. which were for L 2."> and ,C"> "espcctivelv. Tnside the book was a uest that the notes should he used in -order of sequence. one on each -anniversary of the wedding day. rXIKTEXTH >XAL fiKNKI'OSITV. Another wedding gift which was even more disappointing on its receipt was a certificate for a thousand shares in a gold-mining company, the present of trie bride's mi>erly uncle. I'll the face of it it wa- quite a princely present: hut unfortunately the shares, although of the nominal value of a sovereign, had at the time no value whatever on the Stock Exchange. The di-gust of the uncle and the delight of the bride may he imagined when a few months later the "rubbish share- once more appealed in the list ot quotations, and. the price mounting rapidlv. their owrier was :ilile to sell them for more than Cl'illl*.

A decidedly novel ami acceptable present was that jiiveti by a number of sister- in one of 1111• j r friends. Kach ,uiil entirely furnished one of llie rs ill a liuv bungalow built near one of (lie Surrev common-. Kven (o Ihe paint in<r and paperin;.' tin' entire decorat .ion* and I'll in it me Were chosen by I lie donors. The "den." or library-smoking-room. was arranged entirely bv the frills' brother, who declined any as-i-tauce. even in (lie mailer ol curtains and lablecloth. Probably the most rcjlsil individual present even Liiven to a bride was the CXIIO.MII /four million dollars) which was received by Mis-, Schwab not Ion;: ai:o from her brother, the president of tlie meat American Sleel Trust, on her iii;irvia«'e to a prosperous 1 own-man of •lohiistown. lYnn-ylvania : but even sueli a colossal bridal »il't caused little as--1 onish 111 e l)t ill the Slate-, where presents such as queens mijrht well "livy are too common to cxcil-e surprise.

When Miss Louisa I'ierpont .Morgan I the daughter of the multi-millionaire Inlander, was wedded to Mr. Sattcrlee, a young lawyer, her father's gift consisted of bonds valued at a million dollars, a mansion on the banks of the Hudson river, an almost priceless collar of diamonds. and a corsage ornament of pearlshaped brilliants, which in itself was worth a king's ransom. As for her other presents, which numbered 400, they included chests of gold and silver plate, old tapestries, paintings, fabulously-pric-ed furniture, and costly jewellery, sullicieilt to equip half-a-dozen royal brides. REGAL GIFTS. Xo less fortunate was . Miss Helen MeUuighlin when she wore a bridal veil for Or. Alexander F. Carroll, for the presents showered on her were valued at half-a-million dollars, and four large furniture vans, with a strong police escort, were required tp remove them from her father's house.' Among these almost endless gifts were a dinner service of solid gold; a diamond necklace of brilliants, each stone weight !J% carats; 400 vases of Royal Worcester, Satsuma. Limoges and Dresden; vases of gold and silver; cheques whose total amounted to hundreds of thousands of dollars; and jewellery "sufficient" (to quote a reporter)."to stock half-a-dozen shops." Helen's sister, Mary McLaughlin, who preceded her to the altar, received gifts valued at from t'200,000 to £250.000,; and a similar value was placed on tbe wedding gift's of Miss Amelia Tweed, daughter of"the famous "Boss" Tweed. When, too, Miss X became the bride of Mr. D'Arcy a few years ago. among her manv hundreds of presents, were the following, all received from the bridegroom:— A rope of 400 pearls of exquisite color and perfect shape: a diamond and turquoise necklace and earrings; a necklace of diamonds and pearls; a diamond sun, a diamond bracelet, and some very beautiful old French buttons and diamonds and blue enamel. Xor must we ovetlook, among these princely wedding gifts, the diamond ornament, valued at £BO.OOO. the present of the Tsar of Russia to the. beautiful Princess Helene of Montenegro on her wedding to the King of Italy: the. presents to Princess Henriette of" Belgium and her husband, the Due De Vendome, which filled 100 boxes and ' weighed 11 tons; or the silver and gold dinner service of nearly 1000 pieces, given by pight, royal relatives to their Majesties of Greece on their silver wedding day. "