A SUIT FOR DIVORCE.

Thames Star, Volume XII, Issue 3773, 31 January 1881, Page 3

A SUIT FOR DIVORCE.

"My name is Gallager,"' said the stranger, as he entered Colonel Brown's law office. " I called to see you about a suit for diyorce/' "Take a seat," said the colonel. ■ "In the first place," said Mr Gallagher " I want to ask can a diverce be obtained on the ground of general incompatibility?" "I dunno," said the colonel. " I must ascertain the facts." " Because if you can, I want you to begin sixty-eight divorce suits for me tomorrow upon the ground—" "Sixty-eight." "Let me explain. You see, about four years ago I went to Salt Lake City, and I was converted to the Mormon religion. When I joined, Bishop Grubb said I ought to marry, and so I proposed for his six daughters, and so we were consolidated at once. On the following Thursday fhe bishop died. He left eleven widows. His executors pointed out that I might probably assuage their grief and get a firmer grip on the property by taking Jbem out of their lonely condition. So i married them, and also pooled in two sistera of one of them, living in Idaho, and a cousin of another—a cousin who was single and had a cast in her eye. That made twenty, did it? "

"Twenty." " Well, then, the impression, your honor naturally got around that I was a marrzing man, and so the twelve apostles atTf^y. next, meeting sealed to me four widows and an old maid that were drifting about tho settlement with no one in particular to.Jook after them, and, as I took-the act good naturediy, why on the followiug week Bishop Knox got the apostles to pass orer to me a job lot of his relations, including two aunts, one grandmother and a second cousin, and Bishop O'Toole threw in a step-sister, a mother-in-law, and three iniscrllaneous orphans, who werp related to nobody. So you see, I was gradually getting quite a little family about me,"

"I see," said the colonel

" And then, your honour, if any unattached women would come along in emigrant trains, they were always ordered to me. I thought the heads of the church were a little hard on me, but I had to submit."

" Did you have a happy household ? " " I'm coining to that. I can'fc say that we were all perfectly congenial, our tastes differedl so. The Bishop Grub delegation for instance, would want caromels for breakfast in the morning when the folks from Peru were determined to have clams. Bishop Knox's detachment would insist on cleaning house at the very time when Bishop O'Toole's relations wanted to give a party. If the Sandwich Islander and the squaw wanted to boil a leg or two in the soup-kettle, there was always a fuss with the other women, and the Mrs Gallagher who came from Japan used to make the rest of the ladies furious by turning somersaults in the parlor when there was company, and by standing on her head on the plane stool. As for wash day ! Well, one wanted it on Monday, another on Tuesday, and so on. If there Had been thirty-seven days in a week we should hare had washing on each of them. And then Emeline, one of my first batch of wives, had studied' medicine, and she was always practising upon the others. She introduced whooping-cough to the family in order to try a favorite remedy of hers. Imagine sixty-eight women in the house with the whooping-cough. And then she put ipecac in their tea a few weeks afterwards to see if it would give^ them asthma —and it did. The whole crowd went around gasping for.breath. I remonstrated with Emeline, but the very next day she tried to vaccinate the old lady from the Sandwich Islands by boring a hole in her elbow with a gimblet. Ore day about three weeks ago I brought home a poodle for Julia, one of the young ones. This looked a little like partiality, and of course the 67 others wanted a poodle apiece at once. Now, I'm not able to pay a dog tax 68 times a year so I declined. I saw there was trouble brewing, and the next day when I came home every woman of them had a dog of their own; been out and bought them. They ranged from bloodhounds to black-and-tan terriers. I remonstrated, and then—Well, the wo'iien began to cry, and that set tho dogs to" barking, and then Lucinda went for Julia's back hair, and other ladies joined in, and the dogs pretty soph began to engage in the controversy, and in a few moments what might have been a happy family circle was a good deal more like a copy of the battle of Waterloo; So I fled and took the first train to the East, and abandoned the Mormon religion permanently, and what I want to know is, if I can have those, 68 marriage bonds ■ untied." Moneys no object so.thatlcan got loose. "

Mr MoDonald^member for Stafford and a workingman's representative, lias been ! reproving the miners ..for making terms ] with the masters in connection with the Employers' Liability Act, whioh passed last session, and which imposes heavy penalties on masters in the event of employes sustaining injury through their agents' neglect. „ " A young man at Kemper's Bluff, in this State," says a Texas paper," acquired the habit of tossing a cocked and loaded pistol in the air, and catching it by the muzzle as it fell. The last time he caught it was just a moment before he died." A certain well-known clergyman, having been asked to have a professional quartette to lea^Ao music .in his church, replied : " When I hear that?*, certain number of angels are doing all the singing ' for heaven, I'll permit a pertain number of people io do all the singing for my Congregation. One of the most characteristic Califormanisms was the notice on the front of the gallery of a meeting house—" Gentlemen are requested not to shoot at the organist; he does his beat." But there are ©Jfcer ways of dispensing with the ' mn«o.% -Itt" « ~ Victorian country town - theCburch Committee,, by way o f encouraginff attendance, has cut down the minis-. t«r'» «llow«nce, and dispensed with the amU^t Wthe ground that the congrega':JmMSs* so lon^ tue advantage of tPlflßw 1 as an accompanist that they ougWto be able to sing alone ! A lady suggests" that the vestry might their economies further by requiring the - seat holders to bring their own lanterns for evening service, and save the gas bill; or better 'still, shut the church up, and Black-Wednesday the parson. •___