A CORPSE AS BRIDE. H C. E. Lorrimer sends me the following story H 'from Japan: "Since the panting, sighing days of H 'Romeo and Juliet' there has been no such dread- H ful tragedy connected with the course of true love H as one which recently occurred in Japan. The H gruesome awfulness of it is calculated to "send M cold chills down the modern spine. Its effect is M quite as 'creepy' as a ghost story by candlelight M and no less strange and unreal, in these practical H days when love is as much out of fashion as sun- bonnets. A certain lady, daughter of one Mr. Kin- taro Sameda, of Takasu Mura in Kochi Prefec- ture, committed suicido by drowning herself on lfl the very eve of the day on which she was to be H married to a Mr. Taketomi of a neighboring vil- M lage. She left neither explanations nor farewells H and the poor young man was briefly told the news on the following morning. Half crazed with grief, he hastened to the deceased's home as soon as H he received the message and he wore the crested H kimono and the rich silk petticoat which had been made expressly for the wedding ceremonies. H The mournful reminder of the services which H were to have taken place so touched the already H grief-stricken parents that they besougnt the young man to go through the forms of marriage with their dead daughter. He willingly consented. H Accordingly the little group assembled ia the H best room of the house, the wedding guests were H bidden and this most extraordinary marriage be- H gan. The bride's father poured the sacred rice, H or rice wine, the drinking of which constitutes H the rite, into red lacquer bowls, and, amid tears H and lamentations, the groom exchanged cups JM with the corpse. It is said that a sadder wedding fl has never taken place in Japan, the sweet mar- riage chant of 'Calm Sea and Evergreen Pine' M sounding like a funeral dirge." Town Talk. H