Kidnaped

We are a high caste and enlightened race, and infant inarriago is very shocking and the consequenees are soraetiines peculiar, but, nevertheless, the Hindoo notion - which Í3the continental notion, which is the aboriginal notion - of arranging inarriages irrespective of the personal iuclinations of the rnarried is sound. Thiuk for a minute, and yon vrill seo that it must be so; unless, of course, yon beliove in "affluities" - in ■which caso yon had better not read this talfl. Huw eau a man who has never married ; who cannot be trusted to pick up at sight a moderately sound horse; whnseheadis hot and upsetwith visiona of doruestic felicity, go about the choosing of a wife? He canuot see straight or think straight if lie tries, and the same disüdvantagesexist in thecase of a girl's fancies. But when matnre, married and cli&ereet peopJo arrangeainatch between a boy and a girl, tbey do it sensibly, willi a view to the future. P.-operly speaking, governmont should estau.lish a matrimonial departinent, efflciputly ofíicered, with a jury of matrona, a jnd.ge of thechièf court, a senior chaplain and an awful warning in the shape oí a love match that has gone ■wrong ohained f o the trees in the courtyard. All ruarrteges should be naado throngh (he departnient, which ruight be subordínate to the educational departrnent, under the same penalty as that attaching to the transier of land without a stamped document. But governrnent won't take suggestions. It pretemls that it is too busy. However, I will put my Kotion on record, and explain the example that illustrates the theory. Once tipon a time there was a gcod young man - a íirst class offleer in bia oven department - a man with a career bef ore hiru and, possibly, a K. G. I. E. at the end of it. All bis superiors spoke wcOl of hiru, because he knew how to hold his tongue and his pen at the proper times. There are today only 11 men in India who possesa this secret, and they have all, with one exception, attained great honor and enorrnous incomes. This good young man was quiet and self centained, too oíd for his years by f ar - which always carries its owu punisbmont. Had a subaltern, or a tea planter's assieíant, or anybody who eujoys life and has no care for tomorrow done what he tried to do not a soul would Lmve cared. But when Peythroppe - tho estimable, virtuous, economical, quiet, hard working, young Peythroppc - feil, there was a flntter through five départments. The manner of his fall was in this way : He met a Miss Castries - D'Castries it was originally, but the fanjily droppod tho D' for administrativo reasons - and he feil in love with her even more eaergetically than heworked. Understand clearly that there was not a breath of a word to be said against Miss Castries - nota shadow of a breath. Sho was good and very lovely - possessed what innocent people at home cali a "Spanish" complexion, with thick blue black hair growing low down on the forehead into a "widow's peak" and big violet eyes Tinder eyebrows as black and as straight s the borders cf a "gazette extraordinary" when a big man dies. Bnt - but - bnt - Well, she was a very sweet girl and very pious, but for many reasons she was "impossible." Quite so. All good niammas knowwhat "impossible" nieaus. It was obviously absurd that Peythroppe should marry her. The little opal tinted onyx at the base of her finger uails said this as plainly as print. ïurther, marriage with Miss Castries meant marriage witli several other Castries - Honorary Lieutenant Castries, her papa, Mrs. Bnlalie Castries, her mamma, and all the ramifications of the Castries family, on incomes ranging from 1 75 to 470 rnpees a month, and their wives and connectious again. It would have been cheaper for Peythroppe to haveassaulted a comniissioner with a dog whip, or to have burned the records of a deputy commissioner'g office, than to have contracted an alliance with the Castries. It would have weighted his after career less - even nader a government which never forgets and never forgives. Everybody saw this but Peythroppe. He was goingto marry Miss Castries, hewas - being of age and drawing a good income - and woe betide the house that would not afterward receive Ms. Vivginie Saulez Peythroppe with the deference du to her husbaud's rank. That was Peythroppe's ultimatum, and any remoustranee drove him frantij3. These sudden madnesses most affliot the sanest men. There was a case once - but I will teil you of that later on. Yon cannot acecount for the maniaexcept un der a theory directly contradicting the one about the place wherein rnarriages are made. Peythroppe was burninglj anxioue to pnt a millstone round his neck at the outset of his career, and argument had not the least effect on him. He was going to marry Miss Castries, and the business was his own business. He would thauk you to keep your advice to yourself. With a man in this con dition, mere words only fix him in hit purpose. Of course he cannot see thai marriage out here does not concern th( indiridual.but the govermnen the serves. Do you remeniber Mrs. Hauksbee, the most wonderful woman in India' She saved PlufÜes from Mr. Reiver, ■wonTarrion his appoijjtiuent in the for eign office and was defeated in open field y Mrs. Brem mil. She heurd of the lamentable conrtition of Peythroppo, and her brain struok out the plan that saved him. She had the wisdom of the serpent, the logical coherence of the man, the fearlessness of the child and the triple intuition of thewoman. Never - no, never - as long as a tonga buckets down the Solon dip or the couples go j a-riding at the back of Summer Hill i will there be such a genius as Mrs. Hauksbee. She attcnded the consultation of three meu 011 Peythroppe's case, and 1 ehe stood up with the lash of her riding ' whip between her lips and spake. Three weeks later Peythroppe dined j with the three men, and The Gazette of India carne in. Peythroppe fouud to his I i Burprise that he bad been gazetted a I month's leave. Don't ask me how this j was managed. I believe firnily that, if Mrs. Hauksbee gave tho order, thewhole greatludian administraron wonld stand J on its head. The threo men had also n ! month's leave each. Poythroppe put Tho l Gazettedown and said bad words. Theu i there carne frora the compound the soft I "pad-pad" of caruels - "thioves' canI els, " the Bikaneer breed that don't buh ble and howl when they sit down aiJd get up. Aftot that, I don't know what haj)pened. Thismuchiscertaiu - Peythropite disappeared - vanished like srnoke - ard the long foot rest chair in the houso of j the three mpn was broken to splinters j ! also a bedstead departéd f rom one i? the bedrooms. Mrs. Hauksboe eaid that Mr. Ptvrthroppewas shooting in Ka jputana w'ïli the three men ; sowe were compelled io believe her. At the end of the month, Peythroppe ■was gazetted 20 days' extensión of le&ve, but there was wrath and lamentatior; in the house of Castries. The ruarriage day had been fixed, bnt the bridegroorn never came, aud the D'Silvas, Pereiras and Ducketls lifted their voice-i and rnocked Honorary Lieutenant Castrios as oue who had been basely impasedupon. Mrs. Hanksbeo went to the wedding and was much asttmisbed wheu Peythroppe did not appear. After seven weeks, Peyi throppe and the three men roturued ! from Rajpntana. Peythroppe was in j hard, tough condition, rathor white and more self contaiued than ever. One of the tbree men had a ent on his nose, cansed by the kick of a gun. Twelve bores kick rathei curiously. Then came Honorary Lientenaut Castries, seeking for the blood of his perfidions son-in-law to be. He said things - vnlgar and "irnpossible" things; - which showed the raw, rough "ranker" below the "honorary," and I fancy Peythroppe's eyes were opened. Anyhow, he held his peace til] the end, when he spoke brieñy. Boiiorary Liputenaut Castries asked for a "peg" before he went away to die or briug a snit for breach of promise. Miss Castries was a very good girL She said that she would have no breach of promise suits. Sbe said that if she was not a Jaciy she vas reiined enough to know that ladies kept their broken hearts to tbtinselves, and, as she ruled her pareuts nerhing happsned. Later on, she married a most respectable and gentlemanly psrson. He traveled for an enterprising iinn in Calcntta and was all that a good husband shonld be. So Peylhroppe came tohis right mind again and did much good work and was honored by all who knew him. One of these days hewill marry, but he will marry a sweet pink and white maiden, on the governmeut house list, with a litj tle money aud seme influential connections, as every wise man should. And he will never, all his life, teil her what happened during the seven weeks of his shooting tour in Rajpntana. ut just thiuk how much trouble and expense - for camel hire is not cheap, and those Bikaneer brntes had to be fod like huruans- might have been saved by a properly conducted matrimonial departmeut, vinder the control of the director general of education, but