The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-25 00:00:00

DOUBTS AND DIVORCE.

ABLE as the judge is who has been selected t.
discharge the onerous duty of putting an inter-
pretation upon the new Divorce Acts, we are at
present dreadfully at sea upon these delicate
questions. "Marchmont v. Marchmont,“
" Evans v. Evans and Robinson," " Cherry v.
Cherry," bid fair to take their place among the
causes celebres of matrimonial squabbles. What-
ever may have been the inherent defects of the
old action for crim. con., the new tribunal can
afford to throw no stones at its predecessor.
Prurient curiosity will have licked its lips over
the choice morsels provided for it by the care of
the Legislature. Holywell-street itself; before its
recent expurgation, could hardly have outdone
some of the late revelations. Trials of this
description have multiplied threefold under the
new regime ; nor can we, as yet, see how decency

1252 THE PRESS, DECEMBER 25, 1858.

has been the gainer by their transfer from one
court of Westminster-hall to another.

It would be some consolation if we could elicit
from the cases to which we have referred any
traces of a definite principle. We are aware that
nothing is more difficult than to lay down any
general rule upon a subject, the very essence of
which consists in the mutual bearing upon one
another of a multiplicity ofminute circumstances.
Still it would be on every ground desirable to
know what, in the eye of the law, is in future
to constitute such an offence for instance as
that of " cruelty." At present, the term
embraces, for all we know, every species
of marital hostilities, from the "grave delictum "
of actual assault and battery, down to the lighter
but not less effectual warfare of " curtain lec-
tures." Mr. M.tacomosa's offences were mainly
of the tongue, and the abuse of that unruly
member alone has debarred the ex-Dissenting
minister from the advantages of the substantial
connection which he had formed. Mr. CHERRY,
on the other hand, had resorted to actual force ;
yet, in the opinion of a British jury, he did not
exceed the bounds of legitimate marital authority.
Of course we do not intend for a moment to place
upon the same footing the conduct of these two
model husbands. Both seem to have been un-
fortunate in the selection of their partners, but Mr.
CHERRY'S case is happily unmarked by that
coarseness of' language and offensiveness of
general demeanour from which one turns with
disgust in the other. Still facts are stubborn
things ; and the exercise even of manual restraint
is held no bar in the first instance to the restitu-
tion of conjugal rights, while a separation was
decreed where, as in the second, words seem to
have constituted the sole offence ; and even they,
foul as they were, were not uttered, except under
the provocation of taunts couched in kindred
language. To say the least, under the old prac-
tice, the question of " cruelty " was one for the
decision of a single mind, and that one the mind
of a judge well versed in the subject, and guided
by precedents which were generally known
and understood. As it is now, the plaintiff is
virtually at the mercy of the jury, and an unfor-
tunate demeanour in the witness-box may prove
fatal to an application which is nevertheless substan
tially founded upon right and justice. It is all very
well to say that an unwilling partner will render
life itself a burden, and that no real injury is
sustained by the failure of such a suit. This may
be so ; but meanwhile a fresh element of bitter-
ness is added to every altercation, and there is
the danger of an utter absence of that restraint,
which is exercised by the most quarrelsome, when
the tie, once formed, is so for life.

literature of a certain description are edified by a
reperusal of facts so congenial to their taste.
Details of this kind are such as to render minute
criticism impossible • but we will venture to assert
that, in the year which has now elapsed since the
first sitting of the newly established Court, we
have been favoured with a worse class of cases,
backed by a more scandalous tribe of witnesses,
and reported with more unblushing accuracy,
than was produced in double that space of time
under the old system.

We are not going to enter into a disquisition
upon the merits of the two modes of procedure.
All we ask is that we may be spared the repeti-
tion of superfluous nastiness; that the issues
may be clearly understood; that the rules of
evidence may be laid down and adhered to ; in
short, that if we must still have trials which have
made our country a byword for their filthiness of
detail, we may have some certainty that the dose
will not be more nauseous than is absolutely re-
quisite for a cure—that the cautery will be ap-
plied by the practised skill of a surgeon, and not
made an instrument of torture by the hesitating
manipulation of a quack. If it be true that " vice
" loses half its evils by losing all its grossness,"
such a result is assuredly not promoted by a state
of doubt which at present renders it indispensable
to prove everything, lest some material fact should
have passed unnoticed. Meanwhile, the worst
symptom of these proceedings is the absolute
uncertainty which they involve as to the dura-
tion of the most sacred of human tics. What-
ever may be thought of the various causes which
are now held to constitute a title to judicial sepa-
ration, or even to a divorce, the public good im-
peratively demands that the question should be
settled one way or the other, As it is, we are
running matters very fine. The Marchmont
case goes far to establish mere incompatibility of
temper as a valid ground for absolution from the
duties of matrimony. One step farther, and we
shall find ourselves in the dilemma of having
opened a convenient loophole for any couple who
may have their own reasons for wishing
to recall that vow which once uttered has hitherto
been so for ever. Mutual forbearance will have
lost the incentive which was supplied by the
knowledge of the impossibility of relief, and every
petty squabble is raised into importance by a
construction which literally puts asunder those
whom GOD has united. Necessity is prover-
bially the mother of invention, and this incentive
once removed, the field is thrown open for every
species of frivolous, it may be of culpable, evasion.

To take another instance. Nothing can be
more unsatisfactory than the present uncertainty
as to admissible evidence in divorce cases. Mr.
EVANS has now been permitted to reap the
benefit of a species of proof, of which we will only
say that the law tolerates, but does not encourage
it. Mr. FIELD undoubtedly comes off triumphant ;
and we suppose that " Peeping Tom" will hence-
forth be a necessary appurtenance to cases of this
class; while the " Trous-Judas " system of detec-
tion will assume all the respectability of an estab-
lished institution. Whatever may be the de-
sirability of punishment for the guilty, remedies
of this kind are worse than the disease itself.
The private gain is bought dearly indeed at the
expense of the injury to public morality, while
the mode of payment introduces into domestic
life all the worst features of the spy system.
We can hardly recall a single instance where
derelictions of this nature have not admitted of
satisfactory proof, without necessitating the ad-
mission of testimony which would disgrace even
a common informer. Rejection of it by a former
tribunal has in this instance increased the objec-
tions to its reception. Decency and morality
have been flagrantly,
.it may be illegally, outraged,
and the public mind is left uncertain upon a point
which strikes at the root of relations at once the
most sacred, and, as it would appear, the most
easily dissolved.

TIIE FRIENDS OF THE POOP.

THERE are at present in this country a noisy set
of worthless politicians, who claim to themselves
the merit of being the specialfriends of the poor;
but, not content with thus claiming for themselves
this benevolent character, they take good care to
hold up the richer classes, and their political oppo.
nents, as not only not caring for the poor, but as
being their active enemies—as making laws only
for their own benefit, and involving the nation in
ruinous wars, solely for their own aggrandize.
ment. The politicians who put forward these
claims for themselves, and who make these accu-
sations against others, entertain certainly very
remarkable views as to what is good for the poor
and what is bad for them. If proposals are made
in the Legislature to enforce protection to the
crowds of poor collected in a manufactory from
being caught and crushed to death by the
powerful machinery, whose deafening whirl is
calculated to render dizzy the steadiest brain,
these " friends of the poor " arc sure to be ranged
against the proposals. If they were adopted, they
say, they would interfere with free trade—they
would entail unnecessary expenses on the mill-
owners; and, surely, the workmen, with their
wives and children, ought to be able to take care
of themselves. But the moment their own ob-
jects are to be served, they are clamorous
for what they falsely denominate protection
from corrupt influences ; and while they will not
tolerate compulsory protection against daily and
hourly danger to the limbs and the lives of the
operatives, they pretend to have the most won-
derful anxiety lest they should chance to give a
vote, once in every four or five years, under what
they designate as corrupt influence. They will
give no protection to the workers against
machinery, but they will readily establish a
system of lying and deceit in order to protect
them against all such influences as are not
wielded by "the friends of the poor." We really
wish—although we well know how vain is the
wish—that some of these gentlemen, who are
certainly not deficient in ability, would put forth
something like an explanation of this anomaly.
It would be curious to know by what course of
reasoning they can reconcile such inconsistency
to their own consciences. To us, we confess, the
inconsistency is beyond our comprehensi 01, nor
can we wonder if the operatives exclaim, " GOD
defend us from such friends!"

We were not without our fears from the first
for the working of a measure which, hatched by
the egotism of the late Attorney-General,
was forced, under the pressure of the 12th of
August, down the throats of an unwilling Douse.
The indecent haste with which principles so
important as those contained in it were slurred
over, was characteristic of a Government whose
legislative powers were all but exhausted for the
session in giving birth to this bantling. Like
everything else, it was made a party question,
and the result has been a crude, undigested bill,
which has yet to be licked into shape by succes-
sive decisions. Every clause is a morsel for the
Longrobes, and offers points of attack and defence
of Nvliich the cunning practitioner will not fail to
avail himself to the utmost. " Fiat experimentum
in corpore vili " was the motto of its author.
How it has been acted upon, those unfortunates
best know who have been the unwilling subjects
of this precious experiment, and who, in reply to
their indignant remonstrance; will probably be
told that they are sufferers for the public good.
We are quite sure that, with some known faults
in manner, a more able expositor could not have
been selected than Sir C. CRESSWELL. He has
the thankless office before him of acting as the
scapegoat for the sins of others, and of getting
into working gear an engine which, constructed
originally on imperfect principles, has, in addition,
all the defects ofclumsy execution. That he may
ultimately be successful we rather hope than
expect. At all events, matters can hardly be
worse than at present The Divorce Act has
already gained an unenviable pre-eminence
among that heap of ill-considered enactments,
which are at once the disgrace of our statute-
book, and the purgatory of all who are interested
in the constructions put upon them, whether as
members of the Bench, the Bar, or of the com-
munity at large.

But these " friends of the poor" know as well
as we do that the Ballot would be no protection
whatever against corrupt influences. So long as
human society lasts its component members will
be subject to influences. Man must have a totally
different nature before influences can be destroyed.
Influences therefore will exist ; and as it is a law
of our existence in this world that we shall not
attain to perfection, but that good and evil shall
be inextricably mingled, so is it certain that of
influences all will not be good, but some will be
bad, and that no human legislation can eradicate
the bad ones. Not, therefore, that we would
not do all in our power to encourae the good,
and to put down the bad, but if we wished to give
special encouragement to the bad, the first thing
which we should do for that end would be to
afford increased facility for the general
.practice
of deceit, by the establishment of the ballot box.
We would discourage bribery, and prevent inti-
midation as far as possible, but secret voting
would be no impediment to the offering. or the
acceptance of a bribe ; and a voter might be
equally intimidated into giving his vote in a par-
ticular way, whether he gave it secretly or
openly. A bargain might, and assuredly would,
be made with him, that in the event of success
attending the candidate he should be paid his
money, and not otherwise. And he might he in-
timidated by threats if he did not give the desired
vote, and those threats might be carried ont on bare
suspicion, from which, under the ballot system,

It is needless to recapitulate facts which have
obtained an unenviable notoriety already, or we
might refer to Dr. LANE'S case as another which
proves that under the present system no man is
safe. Innocent by the verdict of the Jury, it
does not seem to follow, as a matter of course,
that he is to escape the heavier penalties involved
in the payment of costs. The whole case is re-
argued upon this point, and the admirers of