A MAN WHO WAS HIS OWN GRANDFATHER.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2760, 8 January 1895, Page 3

A MAN WHO WAS HIS OWN GRANDFATHER.

Although many of the commands and prohibitions in the Book of Common Prayer are practically disregarded, there is one at least, in the Table of Affinity, which few of us would dream of transgressing, and it has, moreover, the force of law—that which forbids marriage with one’s grandmother. However greatly we of tho male persuasion—girls are not so fortunrte—may be petted or indulged in our earlier years by that venerable relative, our affection for her does not tend in a matrimonial direction —we do not love her “ in that way.” What boy ever promised that he would marry her “ when he grew upl” Yet the thing has been done ; and the facts of what is perhaps almost an isolated case are within the writer’s own knowledge. A few years ago there died iu a London suburb a builder, whom we will call Mr Smith, leaving a considerable amount of proportv> the whole of which was bequeathed to his widow. She was his second wife, about hve-and-tweuty, good ana of pleasing manner. She had been au old man’s darling au( j a widow young and well-to*do seldom remains a widow for long. The widow carried on file business after her husband's death, and, as U womau usually knows little about bricks and mortar, she found it necessary to employ a man to manage it for her. The manager was the graadi sou of old Mr Smith, and, after a decent

interval of mourning had elapsed, he proproposed to her and was accepted. Whether either or both knew that a marriage between them could be no more than a mere formality, owing to their close relationship, is hardly doubtful. They must have been fullly aware that their union would bo quite illegal. Be that as it may, they were married ; but to avoid giving too great a shock to their neighbor, or suspecting that their own clergyman might raise some objection, the wedding took place in an adjoining parish, where they were not so well known.

Two sons were the issue of the marriage, and then a complication of an extraordinary nature arose. Mr Smith, junior, was, of course, the grandson of his grandfather’s widow. Her sons were, therefore, his uncles. Mrs Smith, as the grandmother of young Mr Smith, was great-grandmother to her own children.

If two cousins marry they remain cousins, although husband and wife. Similarly Mr Smith’s relationship to her second husband would not be altered by their marriage. She was still his grandmother. By marrying him she made him grandfather to her grandchildren. He was therefore his own grandfather ; and as her grandchildren must have been equally his, he was also his own grandson. The lady died within four years of her second marriage, and of the subsequent history of this strangely mixed family we have no knowledge. With the exception of the names the facts related are strictly true.—Cassell’s Saturday Journal.