their ruined health in the haven of
wedlock, and need a nurse; manufacturers, merchants, bankers, who face
bankruptcy, not infrequently the penitentiary also, and wish to be
saved; finally, all those who are after money and wealth, or a larger
quantity thereof, government office-holders among them, with prospects
of promotion, but meanwhile in financial straits;--all turn up as
customers at these exchanges, and ply the matrimonial trade. Quite
often, at such transactions, it is all one whether the prospective wife
be young or old, handsome or ugly, straight or bent, educated or
ignorant, religious or frivolous, Christian or Jew. Was it not a saying
of a celebrated statesman: "The marriage of a Christian stallion with a
Jewish mare is to be highly recommended"?[69] The figure,
characteristically borrowed from the horse-fair, meets, as experience
teaches, with loud applause from the higher circles of our society.
Money makes up for all defects, and outweighs all vices. The German
penal code punishes[70] the coupler with long terms of imprisonment;
when, however, parents, guardians and relatives couple their children,
wards or kin to a hated man or woman only for the sake of money, of
profit, of rank, in short, for the sake of external benefits, there is
no District Attorney ready to take charge, and yet a crime has been
committed. There are numerous well organized matrimonial bureaus, with
male and female panders of all degrees, out for prey, in search of the
male and female candidates for the "holy bonds of matrimony." Such
business is especially profitable when the "work" is done for the
members of the upper classes. In 1878 there was a criminal trial in
Vienna of a female pander on the charge of poisoning, and ended with her
being sentenced to fifteen years in the penitentiary. At the trial it
was established that the French Ambassador in Vienna, Count Bonneville,
had paid the pander 12,000 florins for procuring his own wife. Other
members of the high aristocracy were likewise highly compromised through
the trial. Evidently, certain Government officials had left the woman to
pursue her dark and criminal practices for many years. The "why" thereof
is surely no secret. Similar stories are told from the capital of the
German Empire. During recent years, it is the daughters and heirs of the
rich American capitalist class, who, on their side, aspire after rank
and honors, not to be had in their own American home, that have b