Punch has made rather dreary fun of a really funny
incident. A gentleman of Desborough named Riley, apparently a manu- facturer, of good position, has chosen to educate a factory girl to make a wife after his own heart. There is no particular objec- tion to that, the thing has been done before, and will be done again, knt he has also decided to publish his design, and his reasons, and his process, for the edification of the world in the local papers. Li a letter which has really been printed he declares that he has laid before his "intended" the "numerous terms" of the engagement, has made her travel rapidly by train in order to open her mind, and ha sent her to the south, and will not see her "till she gets a little grounded in general information, and becomes mod erately refined." She is to acquire all kinds of accomplish- ments—French, grammar, and the harmonium—and will enjoy the additional advantage of a "very voluminous correspondence from myself," Mr. Riley intending to wait for his betrothed till next Mayday. Surely the letter must be a joke. If it is not there is only one conceivable mode of accounting for Mr. Ben- jamin Riley. He is a born schoolmaster, with a pride in his pro- fession, and has taken a wife as a sort of corpus vile upon which to try a grand experiment.
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