Humor. Bill Nye's Budget. MARKED) WITHOUT MONEY.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 2009, 23 May 1885, Page 6 (Supplement)

Humor. Bill Nye's Budget. MARKED) WITHOUT MONEY.

Thxbe are a pood many singular incidents connected with the administration of matrimony, especially as it is/lealt out by a justice of the peaoe in a joung territory. During eight years of my oihcial capacity as general agent for substantial justice and durable wedlock, I was called upon a great many times to ladle out my blessing, at so much per blest), under very trying and peculiar circumstances. Wa never had ranch of the orange-blossom and swallow-tail coat business in my studio. I generally invited the couple to sit on the wood-box uutil I got through with the simple drunks, and then we would call in the marHhal and the janitor as witnesses, tod proceed. remember, one day, a gentleman named Chilblain Henry, came in from the head of the Chug Water, and brought with him a Mexican woman commonly called Beautiful Snow Colorado Maduro. She war] of a rich nut-brown color, with a wonderful wealth of raven hair, which Hhe combed whenever the sign was right, but it hadn't betn right for a good while. She was dressed plainly, but neatly, in an old lap-robe, caught back with •afety-pins and held in place by means of a broad horse hair cinch, which had been an heirloom in the family. She was about fortyeignt years old, and 1 asked her in a bantering tone if she had her parents' oonsent. She did not understand me, aa she only knew a little broken cigar box English. Thinking perhaps she might be more familiar with the early history of her race, I, asked her if she remembered Pizarro ; but she only laughed and displayed her tottering rum of a mouth. The union with Chilblain Henry did not fleem to saturate her with a great, wild joy. She stood there through the imposing cere, inony with her cute little Mexican feet just peeping out from under the heavy drapery of her lap robe, and mechanically answered the legal questions propounded to her, in a rioh, deep, and resonant tone of voioe. Somehow I could not help wondering if she did not love another. Perhaps she had given her young heart to some neighboring greasar, and smiled on him, perhaps, and it had thrown him into convulsions from which he had never recovered. When I got through, Chilblain Henry saluted bis bride. I bad heard before that he wai a very brave man. Then h* cord tally invited me to ditto. I told him that it might occasion talk. He said he didn't want any foolishness or funny business. He allowed that a magistrate had the right to salute the bride, and it looked kind of outre to waive it. He would not pay me, he said, unless I saluted the bride. " Never mind the pay, Henry," I said, " between old friends ; so it don't matter. Hand it in any time. I don't care if you never pay it. But to tell you the truth, Henry, I'm afraid to kiss Colorado Maduro. lam a man of strong impulses, and I do not dare to salute her. When I oaught her in my arms I might forget my own home ties, and kidnap your fair young bride, and dash away with her to the mountains. I know my own failings, Henry, better than you do. It wouldn't be right, and it would certainly make talk. However, if you insist, I will give my proxy to a friend of mine, who is totally blind, and who is accustomed to all kinds of horrors." He went away with his wife, intending to come baok and kill me, he paid ; but after I had stayed in the offioe, behind the fire-proof •afe, two days, with the doors looked, some friends came and told me Henry had done the whole thing on a bet that he would get married and that I wouldn't obarge him a cent. — Nrw York Mercury.