A "CORNER" IN MARRYING.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2316, 9 February 1892, Page 3

A "CORNER" IN MARRYING.

The Americans are a Smart people, who have reduced the art of making " corners" to the exactitude of a science and the dignity of a profession, We are glad to see, however, that they have some qualms of conscience left as to the extent of which this of thing ought to be allowed to go. The other day the Rev. S. F. Butts business deacon and elder of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Cumberland, Ind.," cornered the marriage mart," as an American contemporary puts it, and the moral sense of the community was outraged. The other ministers in the place were greatly puzzled to find that all the couples who wanted to be married in Cumberland used to resort to the Rev, Mr Butts for that purpose. Now this was a seriuos matter, because, as the " New York Sun " tells us, Cumberland is the Mecca of elopers and of couples in the adjoining towns in Pennsylvania and Virginia, because of the marriage license requirements. They accordingly made diligent inquisition into the cause of the strange monoply enjoyed by the Rev Mr Butts, and found that this too business-like " business deacon " had arranged with the cabmen at the railway station that tliey should divide, with, him marriage fee of all couples brought under his care. The _ consequence was that all cabs containing couples bent on matrimony were drawn by irrosistiblo force - to the same destination. Needless to say this proceeding was not approved by Mr Butt's ecclesiastical superiors. On the matter being laid before the presiding elder of the distriot, he suspended his too enterprising colleague from exercising his religious offices. Thus has the great I Cumberland Marriage Corner hopelessly

collapsed like many other ingenious and nefarious schemes to secure a monopoly.