ABSTRACT
“My University tailor had a daughter, whose dower he announced as £30,000, and he gave out that none but a gold-tassel should be allowed to cultivate her acquaintance. But the young noblemen never came, and the damsel pined for a couple of years. The father widened the bounds, and gentlemen-commoners were admitted, but still the maiden was unwooed. In another three years the suffrage was extended to all members of Christ Church. There may have been wooers now, but no winners. Five years more and the maiden still sat at her window unclaimed. For another five years the ninth part of a man held out resolutely, but by that time youth was gone, and the daughter so long a prisoner was glad to accept the hand of an aspiring cheesemonger.”—The Habits of Good Society: A Handbook of Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen. London: Virtue and Co., 1874.
