A SUIT FOR DIVORCE.

Waikato Times, Volume XVI, Issue 1338, 27 January 1881, Page 3

A SUIT FOR DIVORCE.

'My name is Gallagpr, ' said the stranger, afi ho entered Colonel Brown's law office. 'I called to sea you about a suit for divoice.' 1 Take a scat-,' haul the colonel. I In the first pi ice,' h,ud Mr GalUsrher, ' I want to ask cm a divoicc be obtained on the giound of general incompatibility ?' ' 1 dunno,' said the colonel. ' I must ascertain the facts.' 'Because, if you can, I want you lo begin sixly-cisht divorce suits for me tomorrow upon the ground—' 'Sixty-''ight?' ' Let m 3 explain. You scp, about four ypars ago I went to S.ilt Lake City, and I was converted to the Morman religion When I joined, Bishop Grubb said 1 ought to marry, and so I proposed for hi* six (laughers, and so we were consolidated at once. On the following Thursday th« bibhop died. He left eleven widows. Hh executors pointed out that I might piobably ashiiugc their griet and get a firmer grip on the propeity by taking them out of their lonely condition. So I mariied thorn, and also pooled in two sisters of ore of them, living in Idaho, and a cousin of another — a cousin who was sinirle and had a cast in her e/e. That male t ventv, did it?' ' Twenty.' 'Well, then, the impi'ession, your honor, naturally got around that I was a marrying man, and so the twelve apostles at their next meeting sealed to me four •widows and an old maid that were drifting about the settlement with no one in partioular to look after them, and, as I took the act good-naturedly, why on the following 1 week Bishop Knox got the apostles to pass over to me a jeb 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 miscellaneous arphans, who were related to nobody. So, you see, I was gradually getting quite a little family about me.' I 1 see,' said the colonel. ' And. then, your honor, if any unattached women would come along in emigrant trains, they weie 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 ?' 1 I'm coming to that. I can't say that we were all perfectly congenial, our tastes differed so. The Bishop Grub delegation for instance, would want caromels for breakfast in the morning 1 when the folks from Peru were determined to hare clams. Bishop Knox'a detaohment would insist on oleaning house at the very time when Bishop O'Toole' s l relations wanted to give a party. If the Sandwich lalandep and the squaw wanted to boil a leg or two in the there was , always a fuss with the other women, and the Mrs Gallagher who^oame from japan used to make the itest of the ladies furious by turning somersaults in the parlour when there was company, and by standing on her head on the piano stool. „ As for wash clay ! Well,- one wanted it on Moi^ajj, another on Tuesday and, ao, p^. ft had been thirty -mm a, week, we should h^y,© lyiq wajShiuig' going on eacji'ftf $iem.' 4 U $ th^ SfawUtta, one of my; ftc^t- batch; o,f- wivw^ \»& medicine, a#d she always practising uj)on tlfc oth,er?< Sh^^tro^m^^oo^-

ing-cough to the family in order to try a fayoiirite remedy of hers. Imagine sixty-eight women in one house with the , whooping-cough. And then she put ipecao 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. One day about three weeks ago,l brought home a poodle for Julia, one of the young ones. This looked a little like partiabiy, 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 women began to cry, and that set the dogs to barkmsr, and then Lucinda went for Julia's back hair, and other ladies joined, in, and the dogs pretty soon 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 battlo 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 that I can get loose.