out that there are difficult problems in
the present state of society which the view helps materially to solve.
We fear, for instance, there can be no doubt that there is a good deal
of truth in the Belgravian mother's lament that marriage is gradually
ceasing to be considered "the thing" among the young men of the present
day; that girls of good families and even good looks are taking to
sisterhoods, and nursing-institutes, and new-fangled abominations,
simply because there is no one to marry them.

It is not merely that the young men are getting every day rarer; though,
unless there is some system, like Pharaoh's, for putting male infants to
death, what can become of them all is a mystery. India and the colonies
may absorb a good many, though these places also do duty in the
absorption of spinsterhood. But this will not account for the alarming
fact, that in almost every ball-room, no matter whether in the country
or in town, there are usually at least three crinolines to one
tail-coat, and that dancing bachelors are becoming so scarce that it is
a question whether hostesses ought not, for their own peace of mind, to
connive at the introduction of the Oriental nautch. Yet even the
alarming scarcity of marriageable men is not so serious an evil as their
growing disinclination to marry.

With the causes of this disinclination we are not now concerned. Some
attribute it to the increase of luxurious and expensive habits among
bachelors--habits specially fostered by "those hateful clubs;" some to
the "snobbishness" which makes a woman consider it beneath her dignity
to marry into an establishment less stylish than that which it has
perhaps taken her father all his life to secure; some to the
_demi-monde_--an explanation very like the theory that small-pox is
caused by pustules. But, whatever may be the causes of the
disinclination, there can be but little doubt that it exists, and the
worst part of the matter is, that it is found among rich men no less
than among poor. That really poor men should not wish to marry is, even
the Belgravian mother must admit, an admirable arrangement of nature.
But it is too bad that so many men-about-town should seem rich enough
for yachting, or racing, or opera-boxes, or even diamond necklaces--for
anything, in short, but a wife. The fact is, that in the eyes of poor
men a wife is associated chiefly with handsome carriages, showy dresses,
fine furniture, and other forbidden luxuries; and,