BARNEY THE BETTING MAN'S PRIZE.

Tuapeka Times, Volume III, Issue 183, 10 August 1871, Page 7

BARNEY THE BETTING MAN'S PRIZE.

[From the "Daily Times" Melhmrne C'orreipondent.) August 3.-d 187-1. '

There are always incidents of the daily life of a city which excite a good deal of interest, furnish matter for a good deal of talk, and which still, rarely get noted in the newspapers. These are tbe especial perquieites of those correspondents to remote journals, who rely on town talk and town scandal to add spice to their letters. But, even without any such reliance, I cannot refrain from alluding to a highly romantic incident of this kind, on account of its interesting character, and also from the fact that a faithful narration of the circumstances is n.t calculated to reflect discredit on or cause annoyance to anybody. We know of old that love breaks through iron bars — that it treats conventional barriers separating class from class with a transcendent scorn — that it heroically braves opinion and censure and ridicule in gaining its object. Still it is rare in these modern days, and in so prosaic a community as ours, to see all these qualities of the universal passion so strongly display themselves as they have in a case which has for some days excited the wonderment of Melbourne. The facts told simply are as follows : — The other day at about seven o'clock in the evening there was a ring at the door of Mr. Joseph Thompson, a well known bootmaker. Barnet, brother to Joseph, walked to the door and opened it, when he found a cab with a young lady in it. The lady asked for Mr. Thompson, and on recognising Barnet, said that he was

the man she wanted, at the same time rising a thick jveil which she wore, and asking him if he did not know her. She displayed a rather pretty face and a pair of bright blue eyes, which, however, were not familiar to Mr. Thompson. She told him that she had often seen him on the race-course, and also brought to his remembrance that she had once dropped a handkerchief for him to pick up as he was v passing wliile she wus getting out of a carriage. This she now told him was done to attract his attention. She had long loved him, and at last had left every-,, thing to come and live with him. She went on to explain to the amazed Barney, as he is familiarly called, that she was the neice and ward of Mr. S , a well-known soft goods' merchant 5 tbat her aunt was about to return to England, and she was to have accompanied her, but tbat she Kiad determined not to be parted from the object of her love, -and' had, left her uncle's house. for ever. <,Well, Barnet did not know what to do. At length, he conducted the young lady into the house, and went- away to the Theatre to find his brother. He soon told Joe of the " rum go" that Had happened to -him, and Joe advised him to send her home to lier relations at once. He returned and attempted to do this, but she declared that she : would • not go, and by this time the attractive face and the blue eyes, and perhaps, above all, the high " swell connection," were telling on the heart of Barney, who now swore to his brother that he should like to have the girl. It was at length decided to send her for the night to the house of a married friend. Next day Joe enquired about town, found that the girl was all she professed to be,, that she had some property in her own right, but which was settled upon her, and that there seeme 1 to be no obstacle to , the match ou which this true Barney was as much set as was the young lady. Joe, therefore, talked to his brother in the language familiar to him, swore' with all the vigour of expletive, for which he is famous, that the thing must be done right, straightforward, no adjective nonsense, till they were married, and. the girl was allowed to stay at the friend's house again for another night. The next day Barney, scarcely believing that it would be true that he was wedding a scion of the soft-goods aristocracy of Toorak, was married to his fair one, dropping down his knees at tbe part of the marriage service where the minister said " Let us pray." like, as his brother expressed it, "a lamb." The day after the duty devolved upon Joe of going to the house of Mr. S. to relate, on behalf of the family, what had been done. Mr. 8. was anxious to know how the girl had spent her time after going to Thompson's house, and prior to the marriage. But Joe answered him that everything bad been done all right, and on the expletive square, adding, "If we had been the most respectable people we could not have acted more honourably than we did." Mr. S. observed that it was perhaps well that it was no worse, but must say that the affair would have been much less unpleasant to him if the young lady had married within her own sphere. " Very likely," said Joe, " but look you here, Mr. S., she might have married some fine gentleman in her own sphere — (Joe pronounced ifc- ' spear ') — and not got half so good a husband as she has got in young Barney." The girl had before written to say, that she had left her friends for ever ; that she would never return to them, never see them again, and that j in future she should • remain • in t'te ' sphere of the husband she had chosen. And it is quite certain that she has so { far appeared to find herself (juite at j home in the society of the Jewish bet- j ting men and " horsey gents,' 1 for one j of whom she quitted tlie eminently j

respectable circles of Toorak. If she is pleased with the change, the tribe of the Thompsons are equally pleased with the honour conferred and the respectability imparted by their alliance with a " swell soft goods house." The extraordinary step taken by the girl is only to be explained by the assumption that she is a very strange girl indeed ; but still it seems to throw some reflection on-the kind of life from which she escaped. It is possible to make life so respectable, and so exclusive, so to narrow it, so to deprive it of all vitality, of all natural feeling, natural activity, natural excitement, that its pompous, empty dullness at length becomes intolerable to one to whom feeling, and activity, and excitement are necessities, and that it seems better to abandom all the formal elegancies and insipid refinements by which it is surrounded, and risk ridicule, and even shame and disgrace, in the attempt to escape from it. And judging from the case of this girl, life seems to be reduced to something like this in the upper circles of our mercantile aristocracy.