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Show 7 THE NEW MATRIMONIAL BUREAU. A Syndicate That Will Do a Laud Office Business Between the -East and the West. A special New York correspondent' of the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press is responsible re-sponsible for a column and a balf in that paper's - issue,- telling the details of a matrimonial racket lately inaugurated and describing the workings of a. syndicate syndi-cate lately formed for the purpose of pro-moting-intermarriage between the overplus over-plus female population of the East and the preponderant male element in the West. The Press says : " " Early in June last half a dozen gentlemen gen-tlemen formed a joint stock company under un-der the name of the 'American Exchange Bureau,' and were incorporated under the laws of New York. Four offices under various disguises immediately opened, j one in New York, one in Sioux i City, one in Helena, Montana, and one in PortlandjOregon, The gentlemen forming the syndicate are well and widely known as men of wealth and wide financial experience, ex-perience, including such names, as the Hon. Ellis G. Seymour and General John Hughes, of New York City ; Warden M. Clay, of Massachusetts; D. L. Westfield, of San Francisco ; Henry Woods, of Minnesota, Min-nesota, and Major Edwards, of Fargo, Dakota. The stock is divided into 500 shares, but it is understood that the original orig-inal six hold a controlling interest." It then proceeds to detail how the work, which commenced July 1st and closed November 15th, - was proceeded with through the medium of commercial trav elers, lhese men were engaged by the syndicate to make a thorough canvass of the whole country. They were furnished with blanks to get descriptions of men and women desirous to marry. Correct name, age, complexion, height and weight were insisted upon, but fortune, acquirements acquire-ments and accomplishments were left krgely to the lady's own estimate. Plitio-cal Plitio-cal and religious views were not required, candidates being classed by the agent only under four general heads, "beautiful," "beauti-ful," "fair to middling," "plain" and "iip-Iv" The scheme met with great success, says the Press. - Men who longed for wives, needed housekeepers : and craved companionship;, men whose business conld not be neglected, and men .whose means were limited, all sprang to the front. The Western agent wa3 furnished with two sets of blanks, one very similar to the - ladies', with fewer details, name, age, postoffice address, ad-dress, and bank account being the important im-portant features. The -second blank, called the "contract" and "order card," tallies with the descriptive blank filled by the ladies, the gentlemen simply filling in age, complexion, height, weight and the accomplishments chiefly desired in a wife. These orders are forwarded to Eastern agents, who say they have little difficulty in filling them satisfactorily. The canvass can-vass closed with the following orders: Dakota, 33,600 ; Montana, 25,210 ; Wyoming, Wyom-ing, 29,912; Oregon, 12,200; Washington Territory, 16,000; Nebraska, 20,249, and Idaho, 5,008, against 40,960 ladies from Massachusetts ; New Hampshire, 27,000 ; Maine, 30,704; Vermont, 22,500 ; Rhode Island, 18,116, and Connecticut, 28,910. A total of 125,200 orders against 208,700 head of girls, leaving a surplus of 73,500 still unprovided for. But agents say that even a partial canvass of Utah, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada will supply them all in the fall shipping season. "Of course the syndicate makes some- tning out or each marriage. JNo commissions commis-sions to the company are les3 than $10, and some run as high as $500 and $1,000. Especially in the large cities and suburban subur-ban towns is the revenue enormous. It is believed that Boston alone will yield over a million and a half. There will be two shipping seasons the coming spring and fall, . and the railroads will be kept busy.- The spring shipping season opens May 1st and closes August 1st, which will necessitate necessi-tate the sending of over twelve hundred daily from the two Eastern deoots New York and Boston. Two trains 'will leave each city daily and run straight through to the great distributing depots of Sioux City, for Nebraska and Wyoming ; Bismarck, Bis-marck, for Dakota ; Helena, for Montana. and Portland, for AVashington Territory, Oregon and Idaho." Look out for the first train-load of girls. Every man who has ordered a wife has his blank numbered, and by presenting it when the train arrives can claim his bride -by the corresponding number on one of the girls' blanks. . The correspondent says a great busi- j ness boom all over the country will result from the scheme, and concludes his letter in these terms : "The nation ought to throw up its hat for the 'American Exchange Bureau,' and give three cheers for the boys and girls who have come to the rescue tw9 hundred thousand souls with but a single thought, two hundred thousand hearts that beat as one." - |
