Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1890 — MARRIED IN A MINUTE. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

MARRIED IN A MINUTE.

ESQUIRE ALLISON'S CELEBRATED MARRIAGE FACTORY. HU Pktram Generally Runaway Couple* from Dubuque uad Near-Hi Point. Id Wisconsin—Fairplay a Gretna Green for Youth* and Mnltlons Who Cannot Wait fur Paternal Consent.

as near as I rkin reckin I have officiated at nigh about 800 runaway weddin’s.” “Squire* Bob Allison spoke slow!ly as befits the dignity of his position as the matrimonial magnate of Fairplay, the Gretna Green of Wisconsin. For two hours our little dog-cart had been pounding

away over nine miles of rocky Wisconsin roads, straight east from Dubuque. It is a road over which hundreds of brave Lochinvars and fair Ellens have hastened, while papa's buggy wheels rattled ominously in the rear. It was a hot Sunday afternoon in September. Ahead of us the mighty SinsinJwa mound, crowned by the Convent of St. Clara, cut a disk in the horizon.

Here and there in the fields and on the hillsides along the road big piles of yellow clay, looking like gigantic gopher

holes, marked the sites of deserted mineral holes. Seven miles east of Dubuque a sparkling little spring brook runs across the road, and wo know we are nearing Pairplay. It is Squire Bob Allison’s famous water-cress brook. In it grows the greenest, the sweetest, and the crispest cresses of all the country round. Presently wc drive down over a hilltop and an ancient signboard, swinging from a tall post, looms up in the middle of the road. The signboard is old and battered, stained by the rains and faded by the suns of thirty years. On it you can still mako out tho mystic legend, blazoned in broad, black letters on the weather-beaten background: * ; FAIRPLAY HOTEL, : : bt ; : B. ALLISON. ; * ■•••* Stretched out along the road for 150 feet on the left of the sign-board is Squire Bob’s establishment. The genius

of Squire Bob is many-sided. Squire Bob is a farmer, a hotel-kebjjer, a lead miner, and a dealer ,in black-jack and dry bone. He is also a saloonkeeper and a Justice of the Peacb. u Eor many years he was postmaster, until recently removed for “offensive partisanship,” “whatever Jhat there is,” Vs Bob says.’ For thirty years Bobhas been agent for the stage Hhe between Dhbhqile and Phttteville, Wis. Ttfifce f »--week the stage eoach, now greatlfViminished in ble door. We dismounted and fastened ourfiorse to one of the many posts along thetporch. The plafee looked desßrted., .Save old Sqifire Bob standing in solemn dignity behind his bar not a soul waft insight We Stepped inside the door, and in two minutes the room was full. Eiffteen or twenty big, husky miners and farmhands, with ah eye open for a free drink, had put in their appearance from some mysterious quarter. Then the treats went roupd, Squire Rob pouring his own brand of ancient apple-jack from a little brown jug. The glasses emptied, the satisfied crowd disappeared as mysteriously as they had come. “Squire Allison,. Lsuppose you could marry a couple to-night, couldn’t you?” Then came a grand transformation

scene. Tho whilom barkeeper, like the lightning change artists at the theater, proceeded to make up for his champion role as a maker of matrimonial fits and misfits. He pulled on a long, U w.k

broadcloth coat over his shirt sleeves and drew up his six feat and four inches with judicial dignity. “Wall, as nigh as I kin reckin’ I’ve officiated at about' eight hundred runaway weddin’s and I’ll be glad to accommodate you,” and the big squire led the

way Into his matrimonial parlors. The temple of this Wisconsin Cupid is a dismal little room made impressive by an imfnense desk and a lot of black haircloth furniture. The Squire opened his desk and proceeded to display his stock of fancy marriage certificates —gilt and pasteboard affairs, with appropriate decorations of arrow-pierced hearts, Cupids, and affectionate turtle-doves. When they had been sufficiently admired, the Squire pointed to bis records, a shelf full of big ledgers. “Them's all weddin’ records,” he said. “I reckon marriage hasn’t been a failure in my case,” and the Squire ventured a ’ sthile at his own joke. “Will it make any difference if we don’t get here until late to-night?” “No; I’ve married people at all hours In the day and night. I’ve married more than one couple when parties was poundffi’ the front door to get in. But in most cases there ain’t no trouble. I jest simply hitches ’em up shipshape and they go along home, man and wife until

death or divorce do them part. And mobbe the’r folks don’t know they are married for six months’ afterward. ” “What feo do you charge?” “I ginerally leave that to the bridegroom,” said old Bob, with rather a mercenary look in his eye. “I’ve got as high as $25 and then ag’in as low as sl, but most respectable people that come here to get jined in the holy bonds of wedlock think aV is about right. The worst deal lever got, though, was from a young feller who run away with a Dubuque girl and come over here to git married. He stood me off for my fee and then tried to borrow $1.50 to pay his livery bill." “You must have bad some exciting experiences ” “Yes, I have had, but you mustn’t be a-asking me to reveal, no professional secrets. It would hurt business. I had an awful funny case one night last week. A young feller drove up with his girl in a single buggy about H o’clock. We was ail to bed, but he pounded us out and said he wanted to get married. I

told the farj’ly to get up and come down so as to be witnesses, and lit up my office. The young feller hitched and ho

»nd the girt cum in. The girl had abR b ack veil over her face. When we got all ready to solemnize the nuptials t told the young lady to take off her veil. No, sir, she wouldn’t do it Then she called the feller off to a corner of the room, and she and him argied together quite a spell, very anxious-like. Finally the young feller cum over to roe and says: ’Wall, Mr. Allison, I guess we won't git married to-nigbt, after ali,’ and with that him and her unhitched and drove back to Dubuque, and I never got a cent for my trouble. “Wall, I suppose you’ll be over tonight?” said the Squire, as we rose to go. “No; we re just a couple of newspaper men, too poor to get married.” “Wall, why the dickens didn’t you say so?” queried the offended dignitary, as visions of a fat fee vanished from his mind.

Nevertheless, local newspaper men cherish no animosity toward Squire Bob. His Fair play justice-shop is a fertile source of matrimonial sensations. Three or four couples from Dubuque, Galena, and the surrounding towns are clandestinely married there every week, and dozens of eloping couples from all parts of the country come in by train and hasten by carriage to the shrine of Squire Bob, where thoro is no tell-tale marriage icen se to be secured. Many prominent people in Dubuque and elsewhere who are now trotting along sedately in double harness and bringing up children in the way they should go were “jined” in holy wedlock by Squire Bob, and “a Fairplay wedding” is a standard proverb through all that section. Many of Squire Allison's weddings have resulted happily, and the burden of responsibility on his broad shoulders is probably no heavier than that of many who are in the marrying business In a less informal way. Squire Allison’s team is a historic outfit. It consists of a little old white mule, blind in both eyes, and an Immense, gaunt and bony sorrel horse, hitched together to a three-seated democrat wagon.

“JERRY SIMPSON’S SOCKS.” Tho Kansas Farmer Congressman-Elect anti Ills Peculiar Campaign Methods. “Jerry” Simpson, the Farmers’ Alliance Representative of the Seventh Kansas District, is a peculiar character- His success was the most astonishing incident of the recent Congressional elections. The district has nominally a Republican majority of 15,000, and Hallo well, his millionaire opponent, considered himself sure of a walk-over. Simpson owes his election to tho perfect organization of the farmers, and to his own aggressive

campaign tactics. Outside of his vigorous oratory the principal feature ol those tactics was his socks. He did not bring them with him, but the use he made of them was none the less effective. His habit was to appear on the platform with his trousers turned up so that his auditors could see that he wore neither stockings nor drawers. He accounted for their absence by saying: “This is wbat tariffs and mortgages brought me to.” At other times, it is said, he would take off his shoes to show that he had no socks and remark that “things didn’t come to him in carriages.” Sarcasm was nis great weapon and he indulged in rude jokes that tickled the ears of the rustics. He did not disdain to feign ignorance when it was necessary to draw a laugh. Once having made an allusion to Daniel Webster as the author of the dictionary a man sitting behind him reminded him that it was Noah. “What are you givin’us,” said Jerry, “Noah built the ark.” The Congressman-elect from the Seventh Kansas District is really an able man with great power of influencing his own class. He was at one time a lake captain, but after the wreck of his vessel, when he came near being •drowned, be abandoned navigation for farming.

The Peacock. It is curious 'that the habits of so common a bird should be so little known. We have been gravely told that they could not fly, because their tails were so heavy. But the drollest and least pardonable misstatement about peacocks is to be found in “Couch’s Hlustratiou of Instinct,” where we are told that—“lf surprised by a foe, the peacock erects his gorgeous feathers, and the enemy beholds a creature whose bulk he estimates by the circumference of the glittering circle, his attention at the same time being distracted by a hundred alarming eyes, accompanied by a hiss from the serpent-like head in the center.” The fact is the peacock closes his tail at once the moment he is alarmed, and flies off with a scream, instead of stopping to hiss. He will not spread his tail at all if under fear; and when he does spread it, it is either out ol rivalry with the males, or to attract the females. In tests on a number of different persons an electrician has found the effective resistance of the human body to be less to the alternating than to the direct current in the same individual, with a great variation in tie resistance to either current in different persons. In five subjects the resistance to a contiftuous current of fifty volts ranged from 3,320 to 10,000. The tests revealed incidentally a striking difference in the strength of current different individuals can endure.

FAIRPLAY MATRIMONIAL PARLORS.

SQUIRE “BOB” ALLISON.

“THEN THE TREATS WENT ’ROUND.”

“I WILL MEET YOU IN THE LANE, LOVE."

WEDDED BLISS.

AN INTERRUPTED CEREMONY.

CONGRESSMAN JERRY SIMPSON.