the State, and that its author was a member of the legislature who was about to marry a rich widow, and was himself harassed by creditors." A very grotesque law of New York was also a piece of concealed special legislation, made to fit a particular case. It pro vided that a person against whom a divorce had been obtained might be permitted to re-marry on showing to the court that five years had elapsed since the de cree, the other party had re-married, and his own conduct had been pure and good. The act answered its special purpose, and then lapsed into " innocuous desuetude." It has probably been repealed by the recent Domestic Relations Act — or ought to have been. Able Charge. — In the last volume of South Carolina Reports is an account of the memorial ser vices of the Bar on the death of Justice McGowan. He was a gallant soldier of the Mexican and of the Civil War, having been a general in the latter. As a novelty in a meeting of this kind, one gentleman, who fought under him in the late war, gave a glow ing account of the conduct, before Petersburg, of his command of two thousand men, which "utterly and completely repulsed and routed " eight thousand vet eran Union troops, and drove them a mile " with terrible slaughter." That must have been the ablest charge His Honor ever made. If our gallant foemen had always fought like that — or, rather, if our men had always run away like that — the total result might have been different. B1rd1e's Law Troubles. — Once in a great while a case crops out in the law reports of such a charac ter as to entitle it to promotion from dry notes of cases to the rank of a current topic, and such a case is that of Kaufman v. Fye, 99 Tennessee, 145. The plaintiff was Miss Birdie D. Fye, and she was evi dently a birdie of the goose species, not only on ac count of her name, but on account of the trouble that she got herself into from an overweening des1re to mate. Birdie's father had married a second time, and his new mate did so peck and trouble our Birdie that she left her nest at the age of nineteen, and earned her own living as a seamstress in Cincinnati. In 1894 she became a member, at the advice of "a prominent lady of Chicago whose daughters were members," of McDonald's Matrimonial Agency, and through this medium the parties were placed in cor respondence and exchanged photographs. Kaufman was married, to be sure, but was industriously trying to get unmarried. Her photograph being sent to him by the agency, he wrote her that he was "a bach elor, thirty-six years of age, fair, auburn hair, pierc ing blue eyes, American born, of Scotch-Irish and high German parentage." That he was respected,
and considered wealthy. The letter continues, viz. : "Am not looking for wealth, but not objectionable. Claim to be all that any domestic lady is looking for. Live in country. Have some beautiful country houses in Tennessee and Kentucky; native of Kentucky. I am twenty-three miles from Memphis, and 1 think you would like this country, especially the mild winters and abundance of birds and flowers. Hoping to hear from you soon, etc., etc., I am your unknown friend, W. P. Kaufman." He admitted that he wrote this for pastime, and not with a view to marriage. But Birdie meant busi ness, and overcome by this promise of birds and flowers, she wrote him : — "Your welcome letter received. I am glad you like my picture. It is not very good of me. My friends say it is simply horrid. The nose don't look like mine, and they say it looks so old, but I never take a good picture any how, so what is the difference? So you are wealthy; well, you have the advantage of me there. I am as ' poor as a church mouse.' I have to make my own living, and do so by teaching. I know how to sing and dance, sew and cook, etc. I am inclined to be jolly and good natured, and, if you like blonds, I am good looking. I am faircomplexioned, five feet six inches in height, weight one hundred and thirty-seven pounds. I am a German and Catholic, and sing in a Catholic church. May I have your picture? I will return it upon request. Well, my friend, we arc so far apart I am going to write you the truth, just like it is. I consider it a waste of time to write a falsehood or mis represent anything. I like candidncss. I am twenty-one years old. My father lives in Cincinnati. He is in the newspaper business, and he got married when I was nine teen years old. I could stay with my step-mother, but don't like to. Please write and tell me more of yourself, and I will, in return, be frank with you in regard to any thing." What Birdie, in a later letter, wanted, was this: "An honorable, jolly, kind, industrious, sober gen tleman, Catholic by faith. ' He' and I should har monize in every particular." More correspondence ensued, and the upshot was that the rascal induced Birdie to spread her wings and pay him a visit at his home in Arkansas. He wrote her glozing words, such as that he did not want " a lady in matrimony to cook and be a slave, but as an artistic and general housekeeper, to know how to superintend cooking, and when help could not be had, to prevent starva tion " — " one who can cast everlasting sunshine on the man she loves, and make home happy." Birdie thought she could fill the bill — or rather that her bill could fill these requirements — but she was frank, and explained that she could not come without money for new clothes and traveling expenses, and " odds and ends," say thirty or forty dollars. This looked serious, and Kaufman wrote her in a fatherly strain, cautioning her against the dangers of matrimony; but Birdie was not to have her wings clipped in that man
