ner, and replied that she was coming; she was " fond of Southerners," and she would be — not his sister, but his bookkeeper, and added : —
"There is to be no courting. I am to keep your ac counts, do your writing, and work for you just the same as if I were working for a firm in Ch1cago. I would work for your interest. ... I am independent natured, and can teach French, German, and if necessary, I could be a gover ness or seamstress or cook or ' botde-washer.' If you wanted me for company, I am ready to be with you and make you enjoy yourself. Horseback riding? Oh, my! I would rather do that than eat! I did that when I was a child in Germany; it is delightful. But since I am older, I could not have a chance in large cities. Yes, I am jolly, self-reliant, but careful and conscientious. Please write to me at once, and if you want me to come, send me a ticket. I will start Tuesday evening, December 18, and reach Kingsland Thursday morning." So Kaufman succumbed, sent her twenty dollars, said he would show her " all the courtesy of a sister" (brother), and that a man who wouldn't love her "would be a wooden man " (a wouldn't man, rather). When they should meet, she arranged that he was to greet her with, "How do you do, old girl?" So they met, and first thing, he kissed her, despite her "somewhat mild protest." Then she asked him if he was not above thirty-six, and he owned up to fortyfour years of age. He then, on cross-examination, admitted that he was married, but said his wife had not lived with him for thirteen years, and that divorce proceedings were pending, and he would soon be free. Birdie thereupon said that they never could be mar ried — the rules of her church forbade it; but she re mained with Kaufman as his bookkeeper and amanu ensis for above a month, when she left him and removed to Memphis. The defendant continued to press his suit (and fain would have pressed her suit), and Birdie at length learned that the defendant not being a Catholic there would be no ecclesiastical im pediment to her marrying him. When he learned it, "a great stone was rolled from his heart." He also began to read Catholic books with a view to qualify ing himself as her husband. After that they ex changed visits in a perfectly decorous manner, and the wedding day was set. Then came the break. On one of her visits to him he had a cold and a pain in his side, and he asked her to get some hickory bark for it. Birdie forgot to resort to a hickory tree, and Kaufman was very angry. He went away and she mailed him a plaster. But it was of no use. He wrote her reproachful letters, accusing her of failing to meet his requirements "as a domestic helpmate and partner," and of " scolding and fussing around and saying mean things," and of negligence of domestic duties. He gave her high praise as "a true, loving and virtuous girl." She " would fill the bill as a sewing-machine woman or solicitor in the
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city," but as a wife, he "regarded her as a failure." The hickory bark incident continued bitter, and he dreaded her " scolding disposition." But the rascal, when Birdie sued him, attacked her character, and that too when he himself during the courtship, had repeatedly endeavored to take unwarrantable liberties with her person, and on one occasion of this kind she had struck him, as he admitted, and "knocked fire out of his eyes like electric car wheels." Better not to fool thus with a Birdie of five feet six inches height and one hundred and thirty-seven pounds weight. Birdie's letters, laying out of consideration the essential folly of the formation of the acquaint ance, and the still greater folly of her persisting in her wish to marry such a cad, did her credit, and as her scoundrel himself admitted were " full of child like sympathy and loving-kindness." But the jury gave her a three thousand dollar plaster for her out raged sensibilities, and the supreme court feelingly and gallantly affirmed the remedy. The moral derivable from this painful domestic history, and to be com mended to all other little Birdies in the like circum stances is, " don't advertise." Mr. Pickle is entitled to thanks for his report of thirty pages of this interest ing lawsuit. Birdie should sing a song of thanksgiving for her escape from this base bird-catcher, and salt down the money, and no man who reads the report of her troubles will think any worse of her; some indeed would be led to admire her pluck and self-respect, and to believe that she did not "scold around" Kaufman any more than was good for him, and all will rejoice that she forgot the hickory bark and long to apply a hickory switch to the back of the fellow who threw away a good wife. But all the same we fear that the average man would suspect that an adult young woman who called herself Birdie Fye was a Birdie fly.
NOTES OF CASES. An1mal Slander. — Many years ago we wrote something somewhere about slander or libel being conveyed through a comparison of a human being to an animal other than a human animal. There is a considerable number of cases of this sort reported in the books, the most noteworthy of which is the case of the " frozen snake," a clear reference to ^tsop's fable and the blemish of ingratitude. In Price v, Whiteley, 50 Missouri, 439, the charge was " imp of the devil and cowardly snail, that shrinks back into his shell at the sight of the slightest shadow, etc." This very badly mixed metaphor was held to be libellous. Stress was laid on the cowardice alleged, and none on the slowness and inactivity of the snail, which have generally been supposed to be its chief characteristics. Another shell-fish case is now float
