WHEN an action for breach of

WH

promise of marriage happens to enliven the tedium of an assize, bench, bar, and public alike listen with attentive ear. If a lady wishes to visit our courts of justice she is almost certain to ask when there will be a breach-of-promise case. What is the cause of this extraordinary interest? It is hardly necessary to apply any very searching analytical process to discover its main ingredients. First and foremost there is the sense of the ridiculous which seems inseparable from love affairs. Love is a disease, a species of insanity: under its influence the most sagacious in other matters are guilty of acts of imbecility which they would have been incapable of, if in complete possession of all their faculties. All the passions,' says La Rochefoucauld, 'make us commit faults, but love makes us guilty of the most ridiculous ones.' Victor Hugo, in his last great work, puts it in still stronger terms: Pourquoi dit-on amoureux? On devrait dire un possédé.' Generally speaking, every one, at some time or other, has had an affaire de cour, and a consciousness of what then happened, of letters written, of follies committed, is present in the minds of all. Hence they love to learn what others have done under a similar influence-to criticise their method of procedure. There is a grim feeling of satisfaction in finding that others have revelled in greater absurdities than ourselves; moreover, for votaries of love there is a species of fascination similar to that which sometimes leads a murderer to return to the scene of his cris, or the peasant of Herculaneum, whose walls have been rent again and again by the throes of Vesuvius, to the roof which threatens to fall upon him.

un

Curiosity, however, most prominently fixes upon the correspondence. If there are no love letters the interest abates considerably. The character of the contents of the letters fully supports our foregoing propositions. Anything more ludi

VOL. XVIII.—NO. CIV.

crous than some of the epistles which find their way into our newspapers cannot be conceived. In particular the ingenuity of man is employed in coining fresh terms of endearment. A man is thrown off his balance by such a commencement as 'My own dear little pet,' or 'My own ducky darling Sue;' and he flounders on from bad to worse until his imagination is again called in special requisition for a conclusion. There ought to be a common form of heading and conclusion of love-letters, just as there is of affidavits. Only then one half of the interest of the letters would be lost. But some might seek shelter under them. It is the ladies who lead men to make such fools of themselves. Some need no invitation; but others, not the whit less affectionate, are undemonstrative, and indisposed to indulge in fanciful and sentimental allusions to all manner of ethereal and angelic subjects. Few girls, however, will submit to be the object of a reasonable passion which does not continually explode into expressions of ardent love and affection, or run to poetry. They exact unremitting attention, and their ideal nature must be fed too. Idle protestations avail more than years of reasonable devotion. They reverse the novelist's title, and say 'Words, not deeds.' They are like the ghoul in 'Vathek,' whose insatiable appetite for young children was unappeased when the Caliph had inveigled hundreds into his maw. The ghoul kept up a constant cry of More, more!' So it is with women and their lovers. They are everlastingly crying out' More, more!' Only they mean more extravagant expressions of affection, more protestations of devotion, more adulation. And there is a difficulty even about them. They must be ever new and changing. A glutted market makes provisions cheap,' and a constant repetition of the warmest of ideal phrases will not satisfy. The absurdity of most loveletters is in the main to be traced to these causes, the disease of love, not

M

inaptly styled by Mr. Robertson 'the whooping-cough of the heart,' supplies whatever reason may be wanting for the residue.

We rarely get a glimpse of the letters of the ladies, because actions for breach of promise are seldom brought by men, and their letters are generally unnecessary to prove the contract to marry. But ladies exact much and give little in return. Men propose, women dispose. We have heard a fondly-remembered matron say that no lady ought ever to allow a man to know that she loves him until she is his wife. The behaviour of Lilly Dale-so gushing and demonstrative-excited her warmest indignation. Probably few maintain the extreme severity of a rule like this; but still most ladies are more reticent in their expressions of affection than men deem it judicious or are impelled to be. Hence we derive but little amusement from their letters.

A new feature has of late been introduced into these cases which may often supply a new element of interest of no small magnitude. According to an old principle of law, no party to a contract was permitted to give evidence in an action arising out of it. This ridiculous principle was justly discarded by the legislature, but an exception was made with regard to actions for breach of promise of marriage; and until last year, neither of the contracting parties was permitted to appear as a witness. No doubt our legislators gave many weighty reasons for this exception. Their speeches may be found in Hansard; but they were evidently conscious of the danger of putting a new power into the hands of women. They knew that if a pretty girl went into the witness-box, and swore that such a one had promised to marry her (but refused to do it), few juries of men could disbelieve her.

The era of the subjection of women is fast disappearing; and last session the reformed parliament gave to plaintiffs and defendants the privilege many female plaintiffs have long wished for, of appearing in the witness-box and proving

their own cases. They are not compellable witnesses, however: they need not appear if it does not suit them to do so. Several reasons occur to us why they should not be compellable. One at least is sufficient for all reasonable beings. Fancy a man put in the box, and asked, 'Is that your handwriting? and on his assenting, hearing read out, as he occupies his conspicuous position, an extract from one of his letters: I begin to think that love is holy; for I said my prayers last night for the first time-I don't know how long.' How long would a man of an ordinarily sensitive disposition be before he was satisfied that every one in the street was not pointing at him as the man who wrote that letter? It would be bad enough to acknowledge the authorship of the following:

Not forgetting to send my best love from my heart, and a large parcel of kisses, which I hope you will take care of.'

Or:

'Of course you have been to the Assemby Rooms and the Hall by the Sea. I hope you do not carry on any flirtation there. I hope you do not allow any gentleman with whom you dance to see you home. If you do, I trust there is no "goodbye," &c., including kisses, at the gate, which you must, by-the-way, want rather badly, having been without sugar for nearly a week.'

A further reason for their being optional witnesses only, dictated perhaps by a chivalrous feeling, exists in the fact that in many cases the exhibition of a female plaintiff may materially increase the amount of damages awarded by the jury, whilst in others she may be better seen in imagination only. All ladies are beautiful, of course, but they are beautiful and beautiful. Νο jury could resist the charms of a lovely girl who had been cruelly discarded by her lover, and her presence would of necessity produce a good verdict. Even under the old system a judicious attorney, emulating the example of the advocate of Phryne, used to place his client, if good-looking, in such a position that she might be seen by the jury,

and that a sympathetic feeling might be excited. The new system facilitates proof. It will hardly be necessary to resort to the means once adopted of proving an offer of marriage by the production of a leaf of rose geranium sent by the defendant to the plaintiff. The leaf was supposed to signify Thou art my choice.' On the other hand, a dangerous power is given to designing women. There is no telling how many Pickwicks will be made martyrs of. At the Stafford Lent Assizes during the present year a case of conspiracy was satisfactorily exposed. The plaintiff swore positively that the defendant had made her an offer of marriage, and her sister deposed to having seen the defendant frequently kiss the plaintiff. Luckily for the defendant the plaintiff was a middle-aged widow, and the jury found against her; had she been young and handsome perhaps the defendant would not have escaped so easily.

We have spoken of a promise to marry as a contract. Although sentimental young ladies and gentlemen would no doubt object to the comparison, an engagement' is just as much, in the eye of the law, a contract, as an agreement to sell a pound of butter. Our law possesses many beautiful principles, and one of them in regard to all contracts is that there must be mutuality; that is, that there shall be a common obligation on both sides to do or perform something, the obligation entailing a corresponding one to make compensation in case of breach. In theory there is mutuality in a marriage contract: in practice there is none. A man is made to pay damages if he runs off his bargain. How many men, however, have the courage to bring an action when they are jilted? Many suffer no small damage. If Mr. A. is going to marry Miss B., with thirty thousand pounds, he suffers substantial loss if he is discarded. If there is any mutuality he should recover substantial damages. Instead of that everybody laughs him out of court. In one or two rare instances men have recovered damages, but as a rule they are re

warded at most with a farthing. They are to be comforted with the assurance that they are well out of it. A very comfortable assurance, too, and very just; but why it should not be mutual, and extend to the lady as well as to the gentleman, we have never been able to discover. When the emancipation of women has been accomplished ladies will doubtless be glad to take their share of the jury work. Then the men's time will come. Women are proverbially harsh in their judgment, and severe in their treatment of one another. Before a jury of women the tables will be turned, and a man may obtain the justice which has hitherto been denied him. Whether actions for breach of promise should be permitted at all is a question which we have not space to discuss. It is much better that there should be no marriage than that an unwilling person should be dragged into one. If the usefulness of a man to the state may be considered as a matter of public policy, his usefulness will surely be much impaired by union with a person whom he does not desire to marry; for unhappiness must inevitably be the result. He will carry a weight round his neck, which will prevent him from satisfactorily performing his duties in life. But if actions are to be allowed, why should oral testimony alone be sufficient to prove the contract? Numerous contracts are required by law to be in writing, or they cannot be enforced. A contract for the sale of goods of the value of ten pounds is not 'good' if not in writing, unless the buyer accepts part of the goods, or gives something in earnest to bind the bargain, or in part payment. Surely a lady is as valuable a commodity as ten pounds' worth of goods! Moreover, marriages at the present day partake largely of the character of bargain and sale. Why not extend the above provisions of the Statute of Frauds to marriage contracts? The gift of a ring might be declared to be something in earnest to bind the bargain,' kisses to be part performance; and where seduction had taken place under an enforceable

contract to marry, the court might be allowed to decree specific performance, with the alternative of exemplary damages or imprisonment. This last suggestion may cause a smile; but something very much the same was recently pro

posed in the Canadian parliament; and by the penal code of New York seduction under promise of marriage is punishable by imprisonment for five years, unless the parties subsequently marry.

G. W. H.

It tota cricketer, in which the

AM not a cricketer, but I admire

blackleg and the welsher take, I am glad to say, but the very faintest interest. The reason for my not being an active disciple of the ludus Saligneus-I don't know that that name has been given to it beforeis that my courage is not of such a character as would, under any circumstances, make me a warrior. When I see a ball driven from-let me say Mr. Grace's bat-near the spot where I stand on the ground at the Oval, I feel like the soldier who said that it would require much more courage to run away than to advance to the encounter or stand his ground in the ranks. I purpose merely to give you, briefly, an account of what I consider to be the most remarkable cricket match ever played. I know that cricket has had its historians who have described in vivid diction all the mysteries, to the uninitiated, of 'overs,'' square legs,' and 'maidens.' They have had for their subjects, for the most part, acts of brilliant skill and muscular endurance; and I can only recall one event amongst the cricket matches I have seen which was calculated to give pain to those who were witnesses of its progress. That was the match I once witnessed at Kennington Oval, when the pensioners of Green wich Hospital contended against each other when eleven men with one arm each played against eleven each of whom had but one leg. Surely there can be no sadder reflection than to think that amusement can be derived from the infirmities of our fellows! And when it is remembreed that in the case I have speci

fied those who took part in the game were relics of those who mauned the navy of England when the peace of Europe was broken and the security of our empire threatened, I think I have said enough to convince those who speculate commercially on this distressing contest that its omission from the anuual programme would be advisable. If these gallant old tars-for they still preserve all their honest attributes-want to have their recreation in the open air, surely they can do so in some private ground, where their movements can be seen by those who sympathise with their condition, not with those who speculate on their afflictions.

I have not read much of the literature of cricket beyond that which appears in the columns of what are called the morning journals, which, without any logical reason, are understood to be the daily papers. Perhaps some of the authors, whose names are as dear to muscular Young Eton and Harrow as John Stuart Mill is to Miss Becker, or Quain's Anatomy' to Dr. Mary Walker, have related the incidents of the match which I mean to describe succinctly; but at present I can only say that I have hunted it up in an old chronicle -very scarce, I may say, in the laconic language of the booksellers. Even if I have unwittingly repeated a story which has been already told, I can appeal to Mr. Godfrey Turner, whose thoughtfully delicious verses (good phrase that!) have often charmed your readers, for an ingenious an conclusive defence. In the pages of a periodical conventionally known as 'Our facetious contemporary,' that gentleman has