Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1876 — Marrying for Money. [ARTICLE]

Marrying for Money.

The driver of a downward-bound streetcar on a western avenue, a night or two ago, chatted with a pretty woman seated next one of the front windows: “That is *his wife,” said the conductor, “and she rides with him a little way nearly every night.” At Twenty-third street the woman left the car. “ Yes,” said the street-car Jehu, meditatively taking a chew of tobacco, “she’s a pretty good wife, better than most of ’em, I guess, though if I was you, young man, I wouldn’t never git married. 1 married for money, and so did she. We hain’t either of us got any, so we have to make it up in love. O, well, there ain’t much of a story about it,” ne added as he screwed up the brake to let a lady step aboard, “ but it’s kind of funny. My old man was a police captain. It was durin’ those times that the assembly committee on crimes investigated last fall, and I s’pose he had plenty of chances to coin money. I was courtin’ my wife then, and she thought the old man was coinin’ money, too. We lived in West Thirty-fourth street, in a nice-look-ing house, and she lived in West Twentieth street. Her father was in the dry goods business, their house was furnished right smart, and, when occasionally I tool&dinner with her, there was a fine lay-out on the table. ’Twas natural for me to imagine that her old man was well fixed, ana, as Lucy—-that’s her name —was a right pretty girl, I popped the question. She put me off a day or two, went up, and called on my sister, saw the style we lived in and accepted me. We had a high old wedding. Went down to Long Branch and Philadelphia for a week on a wedding tour, and came back to New York. I was earning twenty-five dollars a week, and we boarded in Forty-fifth street. You can bet I didn’t have much of my salary left after Saturday night, but I thought after a time she would have some funds coming in. She thought that my old man would help me along, so she invested my funds pretty liberally in clothes. One evenin’ I came home from the store and found Lucy crying. She said her father had failed; couldn’t pay his grocery bills, and that her folks would nave to leave the furnished house they had rented. You’d better believe it shook me up about as muefi as it did her, but I didn’t gay anything. I just comforted her a bit, and resolved to save something out of my salary. Soon after my old man got bounced by some new commissioners, and Lucy soon learned that he wasn’t worth a red. She was inclined to grumble a little, and I saw through the whole business for the first time. I had married her for money, and ditto she. Neither of us had ten dollars, and right on top of ocr misfortunes I lost my place. Things was gettin’ right serious. I flew around and got a place as driver on this line. We moved out of Forty-first street into Twen-ty-second, near the river, and baby was born. Then Lucy and me talked over the whole business, concluded it was best to live cheap and not anticipate anything from our old mans, and blamed if f don’t think she loves me better now than before we were married. Here we are at City Hall, sir.”— N. Y. World.