They were equal to us even in "FEMALE PEDESTRIANISM. Esther Crozier, who commenced on Wednesday (29th of October, 1817) morning, on the Croydon road, to walk 1000 miles in 20 days, completed 50 miles that evening, at 35 minutes past 9. She commenced her second day's journey yesterday morning (October 30th) at a quarter before 7 o'clock, and, at a quarter past 4 she had gone 32-3/4 miles." She is mentioned again and again in the papers as going on with her task; but I do not think she accomplished it, as I find no triumphal record of it. I suppose the proudest day of a woman's life is her Marriage day, and so we will talk about Marriage in these times. A trip over the border was a common event, but the smith who forged the matrimonial fetters at Gretna Green, was not always a common individual. Early in January, 1811, one of them, Joseph Paisley, died, at the ripe age of seventy-nine. He was by vocation a salmon-fisher, and a brandy drinker of such capacity, that he could drink a pint of brandy at a draught, without its having any appreciable effect upon him: he and a brother toper, between them, drank ten gallons of brandy in three days. He was a foul-mouthed blackguard, but he served his purpose of marrying runaway couples, as well as a better man, and his marriages were just as valid. He obtained the honour of an obituary notice in the London Daily Papers, the _Annual Register_, and the _Lady's Magazine_, in which he is also perpetuated by a copper-plate portrait--so that he must have been considered somebody. These were not the only curious marriages of that time; take this as a sample (August 23, 1815): "THE NAKED TRUTH.--A scene of a singular and disgraceful nature took place a few days ago at Grimsby. A widow, under the impression of indemnifying her _second_, from the debts of her _first_ husband, proceeded out of the window, in a state of nudity, where she was received into the arms of her _intended_, in the presence of two substantial witnesses." This is a curious old tradition--the origin of which I must quote from myself.[35] "This is not uncommon, the object being, according to a vulgar error, to exempt the husband from the payment of any debts his wife may have contracted in her ante-nuptial condition. This error seems to have been founded on a misconception of the law, because it is laid down (_Bacon's Abridgement_, Tit. Baron and Feme) that 'the husband is liable for the wife's debts, _because_ he acquires an absolute interest in the personal estate of the wife,' &c. An unlearned person, from this, might conclude, and not unreasonably, that, if his wife _had no estate whatever_, he could not incur any liability." [Footnote 35: "Social Life in the Reign of Queen Anne," by John Ashton.]