e man of the house was
religious.) A young Lawyer then arose, and addressed the
company very handsomely, and in finishing his discourse
begged leave to offer a new scheme of matrimony, which he
believed and hoped would be beneficial. And obtaining leave
he proposed:

That one man in the company should be selected as president;
that this president should be duly sworn to keep entirely
secret all the communications that should be forwarded to him
in his official department that night: and each unmarried
gentleman and lady should write his or her name on a piece of
paper, and under it place the person's name whom they wished
to marry; then hand it to the president for inspection, and
if any gentleman and lady had reciprocally chosen each other,
the president was to inform each of the result; and those who
had not been reciprocal in their choices, should have their
choice kept entirely secret.

After the appointment of the president, the communications
were accordingly handed up to the chair, and it was found
that twelve young gentlemen and ladies had made reciprocal
choices; but whom they had chosen remained a secret to all
but themselves and the president.--The conversation changed
and the company respectively retired.

Now hear the conclusion. I was passing through the same place
on the 14th of March following, and was informed that eleven
of the twelve matches had been solemnized, and that the young
gentlemen of eight couples of the eleven had declared that
their diffidence was so great that they certainly should not
have addressed their respective wives, if the above scheme
had not been introduced.----> Gentlemen under 20 and ladies
under 15 were excluded as unmarriageable.

You will be pleased to let the public hear of this scheme,
and I hope it will be productive of much good, by being
practised in Virginia.

_A Married Man without Children._

The weak spot in this plan, we imagine, would be the difficulty in
keeping the _blanks_ entirely secret.

* * * * *

We have not undertaken to give an account of all the lotteries of which
we have seen advertisements, as our limits would not admit of it, even
if it could be made interesting to those who like to read about such
matters; New England alone would fill a large volum