The New Orleans Daily Democrat

THE MATRIMONIAL MARKET.

Generally Devoid of Animation—The Watering
Place Prospects.

[New York Sun.]

During the past winter business has been
very light. The movement still lags behind
the expectations of holders. Few engagements
are announced, and the trade generally
has been devoid of animation.

Bachelors are operating in an extremely
cautious manner, and large stocks of marriageable
young women have been carried
over from last autumn. The number of young
girls between the ages of eighteen and twenty-
five seems to be unwarrantably large, and
fathers afflicted with marriageable daughters
cannot exercise too much caution in making
preparation for the summer and fall trade.

All eyes now turn hopefully toward Saratoga
and Newport. It is, however, feared by
steady old dowagers, long in business, that
really desirable young men with incomes
ranging from $15,000 to $30,000 per annum
will this season be scarcer than ever before.
Our rich young men, as a rule, have pretty
much given up fashionable watering places.
They may, as birds of passage, pass a few
days at Newport, Sharon, Saratoga, New
London, or Long Branch; but the great
majority go abroad, go yachting on their
own or their friends' yachts, pass the summer
in out-of-the-way places along the coasts
or in the mountains, shoot, drive, fish, and
"sit around" generally. In early fall they
return to civilized regions and commence a
series of visits at elegant country seats. Watering
place engagements are nowadays few and
far between. Newport, in the fall, when cottage
life is especially enjoyable, is infinitely
more dangerous to the bachelor than during
the height of the season. Mrs. Mann Hunter,
at this period of the year, invariably has some
three or four lovely young women staying at
her cottage, and to meet them she invites an
equal number of eligible young men. Three
weeks of constant walks, talks, drives and
waltzes with the same young woman, to say
nothing of sailing excursions, picnics and
Sunday afternoons in the library, are quite
likely to do the business for any spirited
young fellow who has the slightest snap or
vim about him. Mrs. Mann Hunter, one of the
shrewdest operators in the matrimonial market,
has successfully "established" her daughters,
but still continues in the business from
pure love of matchmaking. We understand
she will have on hand during the coming season
a constant succession of what the French
call hautes nouveautes, culminating with the
choicest rosebuds in October.

In other days and happier times our fathers
and mothers fell in love and married without
inquiring too closely into fortunes, rent rolls,
and the rest of it. They jumped into matrimony
as one takes a header in the rolling
surf. In nine cases out of ten it had the same
invigorating effect, bracing them up as they
went hand in hand through the trials and
troubles of this wicked world. Now, among
those classes claiming the monopoly of the
greatest portion of the "refinement and culture"
which are supposed to be floating
around loose through the country, marriage
has come to be looked upon as a regular business
transaction—a matter of money rather
than love. Cupid may assist at the nuptials,
but money is essential.