The Merry Past 



catching her out at night, cruising under false colours I 

 Notwithstanding this provocation, he declared he had 

 still remained fond of his spouse ; till finding her one 

 day in a house of bad fame, rage had conquered his 

 passion, with the result that he had beaten her with a 

 cat-o'-nine-tails. The jury, whose risible faculties 

 were provoked, acquitted him. 



A sailor who was being married at St. Anne's, Soho, 

 when the clergyman came to that part of the cere- 

 mony which directs that the woman shall be sup- 

 ported in sickness and in health, said, in joke, to the 

 clergyman : " What shall I do with her, if she should 

 be lame or lazy ? " Upon this the parson refused 

 to proceed with the ceremony, and the disappointed 

 couple were obliged to defer their nuptials to a more 

 convenient season. 



Another sailor, at Liverpool, having just arrived in 

 the Jamaica fleet, applied to a clergyman for a licence, 

 it being his idea to be married the following morning. 

 Being asked the name of the lady, he declared he could 

 not tell, as he knew nothing more of her than that 

 she was called Molly, and lived at Edgehill. 



On the other hand, the girls they espoused were 

 also somewhat casual. One of them, whose husband 

 had been three years at sea, having produced a son 

 and heir, was asked how, as her husband had been 

 away so long a time, such an event could possibly have 

 happened. " Why," she replied, " to be sure we 

 never met, but I had many comfortable letters from 

 him." 



There was such an air of jollity about the old- 



lOO 



