1859—Matrimonial Brokerage in the Metropolis

Matrimonial Brokerage in the Metropolis

by a reporter of the New-York Press

Thatcher & Hutchinson, 1859

CHAPTER XIII.

Singular Matrimonial Errand of a Member of a Popular Brooklyn Church-Brokerage applied to the Next World-Madame Mar is missed from the accustomed place-She becomes the Escaped Wife of a Mormon Elder.

THOSE very heathenish old heathen, the Druids, who, according to the received accounts, lived in the woods on exceedingly plain vegetable diet, and didn't deserve so good fare, had a financial system which beat the beasts of Wall street. They borrowed money, and promised to pay in the next world.

Madame Mar should have been a Druidess, for her system of Matrimonial Brokerage extends to the next world, as appears from the following history:

As she was one day seated at her table, poring over "The Road to Ruin "—a work of great literary merit and undoubted moral tendency, bound in beautiful yellow paper-her attention was distracted from the absorbing book by the entrance of a richly dressed, stately woman, whose bearing and manners indicated an accomplished lady. She was surprised at such an apparition in her apartment, from the fact that her female visitors are generally ignorant servant girls, or despairing old maids, who, having failed to secure husbands by the ordinary methods, as a dernier ressort, come to her. She, therefore, put on her very best manners, recalled the pretty words of the dictionary, and received the visitor with becoming dignity.

…

It was accordingly arranged that the madame should visit her customer at her residence on a given day. She went, and the lady found it necessary to call in the doctor that afternoon, to give some advice about a child's health. After his departure, the madame informed the lady that she had given the doctor's head many scientific glances during his visit, and she was perfectly satisfied that he was her congenial companion.

"He," said the phrenologist, "is your husband, in spite of the law. You were made for each other; and however you may be separated, I perceive by the formation of your heads, that you are man and wife.'

The lady now came to the practical part, and as the result was precisely what she wanted, and as she was particularly anxious to keep on the right side of Mar, now that she possessed her secret, she gave her a very handsome roll of $5 bills-not less than ten, nicely folded up.

Inasmuch as Madame Mar is a very honest and disinterested person (as clearly appears from the transactions in which we have seen her engaged), it is not at all likely that she has levied black mail upon the Brooklyn wife.

But the public will, for the present at least, be compelled to get on without the services of the renowned Mar and celebrated Gore. She had an offer to go about the country as the escaped wife of a Mormon elder, and lecture upon Life in Salt Lake City. For this service she was to receive $5 per day and expenses paid. She hesitated whether to accept it; but as her friends now miss her from the accustomed place; as the man pictured on her window curtain no longer sits patiently while she examines his head; as the door-plate inscribed "Madame Mar and Madame Gore" is removed; as her advertisements no longer ornament the columns of the Herald, and as strangers now dwell in the habitation of 176 Varick street, which a few weeks ago was the theatre of her scientific researches and triumphs, it is probable that she has accepted the offer, and is now relating to admiring audiences in the rural districts her sufferings in the City of the Prophet.

Original: Matrimonial Brokerage in the Metropolis