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15 ° THE PHONOGRA PROPOSALS BY PHONOGRAPH. We are pained to announce that the first proposal by Phonograph has proved a failure so for as hymeneal results are concerned. Now, really this is no laughing matter. While to the frivolous and light-minded it may seem a cue for ribald cachination, to the sociologist and student of political economy it is fraught with great consequences. The reluctance of modem young men to enter into the married state is already a cause of acute alarm in Europe. The Hessian diet has levied a tax on bachelors, in the hope of driving them into matrimony, while the French government, frightened at the failure of that nation to in- crease and multiply, not only cares for weakling infimts, but practically offers rewards for the most prolific families. In this country it is estimated that the bachelors already outnumber the old maids, which is quite a reversal of conditions since the earliest colonial days, when wives, like other luxuries of life, had to be imported. Without going into the intricacies of the case, we are convinced that the difficulty lies in the diffidence of modem young men when it comes to propounding the fateful question. The new woman is a much more formidable proposition than her grandmother, or even her mother, and the modem youth is painfully sensitive to ridicule. He cannot bring himself to kneel at his lady’s feet in the good old-fashioned way not only because it would take the crease out of his trousers, but for fear of bring laughed at. Pro- posal by letter, has its dangers and disadvantages. It is related that Lord Byron wrote such a poetic proposal that he was sorry to waste it, so he sent it to the first young woman who came into his mind. The result was a most I