SELLING A WIFE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2642, 27 June 1877, Page 3

SELLING A WIFE.

To the tenacity of old traditions I ascribe a prevalent notion, in rude parts of this country, that an Englishman and his wife can divorce themselves under certain conditions. It dates, I apprehend, from a time when marriage was a partnership at will, and the Eoman theory, that marriage is not a sacrament, was alike unknown to a primitive people. My Notebook contains numerous examples. I select one with a bit of color, which was published £t the date when it occurred. Joseph

Thompson rented a farm of forty acras in a village 3 miles from Carlisle. In 1829 he married a spruce, HveJy girl, 22 years of age. They had many disputes but no children, So after fliroe years (hey agreedto part. The bellman was sent round the village to announce that Joseph Thompson would sell Mary Ann Thompson by auction on April 5. 1832. at noon precisely. At the hour appointed Joseph Ihompson stood on a table, and his wife a little .below him on an oak chair, with a halter of straw round her neck. He put her up for sale in terms that a bystander thought worth while to take down on the spot. "Gentlemen, I have to offer to your notice my wife, Mary Ann Thompson, or Williamson. It is her wish as well as mine to part for ever ; and will be sold without reserve to the highest bidder. Gentleman, the lot now offered for competition has been to me a bosom serpent. I took it for niy.com'forfc and the good of my house; but it became my tormentor, a domestic curse, a night invasion, a daily devil. The Lord deliver us from termagant wives, and troublesome widows ! .Gentlemen, avoid them as you would a mad dog, a roaring lion, a loaded pistol, cholera morbus, or any other pestilential pheno- j menon ." Here it seems to have oc- | curred to Joseph Thompson that he was not going the way to sell his lot at a high figure; so he tried to bo more the auctioneer, and less the husband. " However," said he, " now I have told you her little defects, I will present the bright and sunny side, of her. Slie can read novels, milk cows, and laugh and weep with the same ease that you can toss off a glass of ale. What the poet says of women in general is true to a point of this one: I

Heaven gave to women the peculiar grace. To laugh, to weep, and cheat the human race. She can make butter and scold the maid; she can sine Moore's melodies, and plait her own frills and caps. She cannot make rum, nor gin, nor whisky ; but she is a good judge of all three from long practice. What shallwe say for her, with all her perfections and imperfections ?—fifty shillings to begin ?" There was no bidding at all. Then the auctioneer was angry, and threatened to take the lot home. The company in general sustained this threat with composure ; but one Mears conceived hopes, and asked modestly whether an exchange could not be made. " I have here," said he, "a Newfoundland dog; a beauty. He can fetch and carry ; and if you fall in the water,.drunk or sober, he'll pull you out." Thompson approved of the dog but objected to give a Christian in even exchange for a quadruped. Each had a prejudice in its own favor; owing to which the company backed him. So at last Mears agreed to give the dog aud twenty shillings to boot.—Exchange.