Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 February 1887 — AUGUST AND NINA. [ARTICLE]

AUGUST AND NINA.

_A Marriage by Proxy Contracted Between Anarchist Spies and Miss Van Zandt. * A Socialistic Jnstice Performs the Cere-mony-*-Spieß\Brother Acts as Proxy. [From the Chicago Tribune.j f. ver since Sheriff Matson declared that Mis* Van Zandt should not marry August Spies tbe young lady has been more than ever resolved that she would do it. The determination was chiefly on her side, Spies being measurably indifferent on tho subject. So she set her wits to work, and has kept them at Work ever since the marriage ceremony was forbidden, to devise gom» way in which to deceive the adversary. She spread abroad tbe report that sho was going South or going to Europe, in order to throw thu Sheriff off his guard, and all the while kept up her plotting aud planning. Among others whom sho consulted as to how to circumvent Sheriff Matson was Just.ce Lngelhurdt, of Jefferson, who is somewhat of a Spies sympathizer, and who made a speech at a meetin; at Jefferson a few months ago, which was rather stronger than common sense would have dictated. Justice Engelhardt, being wise Uovond his generation, studied up tho law, helped by an unknown attorney, ana Cttiuo to tho conclusion that the only way in which the Sheriff's veto tould be evaded was by a marriage by proxy. He figured it out in some way that that would constitute a valid marriage, probably misled by his recollections of various royal personages whom he had read of atone time and another as being married by proxy. Ha was directed or authorized to draw up a proper lorm or power of attorney, and after much laboring he succoedod in getting it ready last Friday. Saturday morning Miss Van Zandt and Miss Spies got the document and took it to the t'ounty JaH, w here Mrs. Ferdinand Spies and a Mrs. Wend land witnessed Spies’ signature to the paper, by which he authorized his brother Henry to represent him at the ceremony. Then they—Miss Van Zandt’s parents and Henry. Chris, and Ferdinand Spies, brothers of August —went out to Justice Kugelhardt’s house in Jefferson, and the eeromony was performed, after the -Justice had again thought over the matter and satisfied himself tnut, he was correct rn his position. It went off just as it usually does in a Justice’s office, except that Henry Spies, armed with his proxy or power of attorney, answered to tho name of August; Vincent Theodore, and, as his representative, said that he took Miss Van Zandt to be his wife. It was late at night when this interesting ceremony was performed and midnight before the party got back to their various homes. As an act of defiance to Sheriff Matson the thing is well enough, but when Justice Engelhurdt comes to return the marriage license to the County Clerk, as he is required to do, and c rtifies that be married the parties named in it he will be apt to hear something from that official, for a marriage by proxy is a thing unknown to tho laws of the Unit d States, or to the law of England. The form of marriage by proxy was never itself the marriage —was never anything more than a betrothal —and was always followed by a religious ceremony in due course of time. In this caso it is nothing more than a contract of marriage which lias been entered into. If either of the parties breaks tho contract the other has the right to sue for damages, but not for specific performance. Should Spies be .hanged in a few months Miss Van Zandt would not be his widow; sho would have no right to boar his name ; sho could not inhorit his property; she would have no dower right in his estate ; she would stand on precisely the same footing as if he had written her a proposal of marriage, and she had replied accepting it only that and nothing more. “Marriage by proxy” sounds well, but it is not marriage by. common, statutory, or canon law.