MARRIED FOR FUN.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2157, 28 November 1885, Page 2

MARRIED FOR FUN.

Getting married " for the fun of the thing" may be an exceedingly humorous proceeding, but it often turns out to be a very grave matter. Such, at least, seems to have been the experience of a young San Franscisco lady —Miss Flora S. Hastings, Standing on the platform at Alleghany station, Yivginia, on Ootober 9,1876, talking with James O'B. Kelly while waiting' for a train, the latter abruptly asked her if she would marry him, She was seventeen, he eighteen, There had been no courtship—no talk of marriage between them before. But she was frolicsome and fresh Mm school, and he thought it would bo the height of humor to "get married just for the fijn of the thing," He assured her that he would never regard it otherwise than as a joke and would never claim her as his wife. A willing priest, the Rev. William \yalsh, was present, who entered into the humorous spirit of the thing, She nodded acquiescence. hi response to the rev. gentleinterrogatories, she said she would take Mr Kelly to be her husband, and lie said he would take her to be hia wife. The joke was only carried to this point. The rev. gentleman's fund of humor was exhausted before reaching the point of pro-, nouncing them man and wife. As there was nothing to detain Miss Hastings at Alleghany station she at onoe proceeded on her journey. She never lived with Kelly as lus wife, She went her way and he remained at Alleghany station. Seven years elapsed, as they say in the play. In January, 1883,' she saw Kelly again, and at the Alleghany station, as before. She was "no longer the hoydehish girl of their former meeting, but a mature woman, whose maimer betokened business ot the most serious import. She gave a hurried resume of her life in the interval of seven years since they last met. She spoke quickly—excitedly. She had come purposely from California to see hiin. She had marrief) there ajid had a child. " And we lived happily enough," she continued, " until my husband heard of our mock marriage, I havo come to "get you to tell him that that was all a jdke." "lean do no such thing,"was Kelly's cold response. '' You're my wife," Finding that the quondam humorist Kelly \yas in earnest now, and insisted in declaring that Bhe was his wife, she at once bepan a suit to have the marriage annulled, on the ground that she had been induced to give her consent to it through Kelly's false representations that the marriage was only a' joke, and was never consummated. Mr Abraham Kling was appointed referee in the-case. His report to Judge Andrews, of the Supreme Court, recites that,\Miss Hastings, who still retains her maiden name, was married at San Francjspq .pn : April 25, 1868, to Winfield Scott Keyes bi the Archbishop at the Cathedral, Some-five years later Mr Keyes heard of the mick marriage to Kelly and the latter's claim that it wan genuine. He accordingly, in July, 1883, brought a stiit in San Francisco to have his marriage set aside, on the ground that his wife had been previously married, and had a husband still living.' In "this suit Mrs Keyes also, sought to have the custody of their child. It is stated that this suit is still pending. The report of Mr Kling has nothing, however, to do with the divorce proceedings in San, Pram taj* sWy to. PW.B opinion upori the question of the alleged with Mr Kelly. The.: referee reported that the marriage with Mr Kelly was illegal, and Judge Andrmconflrmtdthe report.