Democratic Sentinel, Volume 10, Number 25, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 July 1886 — Congratulations on Marriage. [ARTICLE]

Congratulations on Marriage.

About the first of March a Colorado editor took two very important steps, viz: he sold out his paper and took in a life partner. Perhaps he had to do the one to carry him triumphantly through the ceremonies and trip incident to the latter. Be that as it may, the knot was tied, and “ Dicer Swift ” addressed the following open letter to him. There is an originality and freshness in it not found in any “Complete Letter Writer,” and it is safe to say that the fair bride has pasted it in a scrap-book for future reference: Friend Charlie : It is with the most profound sense of joy that I address your journalistic nobbs on this gleesome occasion. I learned by yesterday’s mail of your great luck in the capture of a winsome, winning maiden to share your meal ticket, and free transportation over all railroads and their leased lines. The blind goddess of love has swooped down upon your lonely sanctum, and partially bereft you of your old-time freedom. Where the merry popping of beer-bottle corks and stale chestnuts was once heard throughout the silver hours, now the brain repository is comparatively quiet and measurably still. The nut-cracker is broken at the handle, and the corkscrew is twisted out of shape, and buried in the back yard. The glad smile that now welcomes you when you turn in at evening’s hallowed hour, although it come from but one pair of lips, is worth twenty per cent, more than that of the liouris of other days, and the grocery bill mocks the languid pocket-book. I don’t know what it is to be married. Love has never caught onto me fractionally, and sat down on my neck, and wolloped me around the cook stove and up over the flour barrel, but I can enter into your heart and see the internal workings of your warm affections. Cupid has at last given you your first wife, with a full set of natural teeth; she is now the peri of your home circle, and for many years to come will stand the racket ol matrimony without ground feed. She is your one vast wealth of wife, and you must teach her to shun the job press like she would the deadly chewing-gum, or some day she will flit to the limitless hence. Marriage, however, is the aim of all mankind; it is also the aim of womankind. We can not live always on the catch-as-catch-can plan, and be happy. We are born into this world without our knowledge or consent, and we jump into matrimony like a fireman rushing to a burning brewery or a female seminary. To-day you re joice that you still live, and your humble home howls with mirth and music. You have brought a wife to your fireside to gladden your declining years, and makfe life interesting to you. Now, to be sure, some of your old mashes are stricken, and they feel as one who don’t care whether the next circus stops at Canon or not; but that will soon pass away and the sun will once more light up their pathway. When the spring round-up comes along some pleasant sunny day, it will bring to them some bullionaire, in leather pants with the seat cut out, who will far surpass and everlastingly lay over a poor plodding molder of public opinion. In closing, I desire to express my hope that ere this letter has reached you the first quarter of your honeymoon has passed, and that you are beginning to take your meals at regular intervals. Give my love to your bride when you have leisure, and believe me to be always your solid pard and co-celebrator in any event of this kind which may ever occur to you in the hereafter. Should a rime-nippled subscription list ever knock your paper galley-west, and throw a shadow over your" home, do not hesitate to draw on me for what genuine grief and sympathy you need to carry you through. Yours with a sob in one hand and a snicker in the other. Dicer Swift. P. S. —Please send me about five extra copies # of this week’s paper, not necessarily to put under carpets, but to show good faith, and to help my best girl reconstruct her bustle. Dicer.