The Express.
London, England, 1861-11-06 00:00:00

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LONDON, IVEDNESDAY, NOV. 6.

TO OUR READIR&

SPOWITNO INTELIJOENCE.

A late edition of the Express is published every
evening during the racing season, containing the
results of the day's raiv4.

Willi the commencement of the present legal
year the Divorce Court celebrates its third anni-
versary. Its brief existence has certainly not
been spent in inactivity. Hundreds of marriages
have been dissolved, many thousand decrees
affecting the rights of married persons have been
made, and each successive session has witnessed
a new act for enlarging or explaining its powers.
Yet, strange to say, it still finds unsettled, or,
rather, involved in a yearly increasing obscurity,
the fundamental question, Who are entitled to
sue in it ! Steady-going English coupbis, joined
at tho altar of their own parish churches, never
removing out of view of thei• own village elms,
are almost the only parties who are entitled
to resort with confidence to the new juris-
diction, which perhaps they are the least
likely to desire to invoke. But the roving tem-
peraments to whom a permanent place of abode
seems as intolerable as a prison, the children whoa
the mother land yearly casts forth to seek their
fortunes in thit uttermost parts of the earth, the ,
mixed races which at home fall under the sway of
the Sovereign of the United Kingdom, find their
approach to the mournful remedies of the Divorce
Court barged by the most perplexing doubts. The
statute, in wide and general terms, threw open its
doors to "any husband" and " any wife." But
the ingenuity of lawyers has discovered that these
words cannot be read in their natural sense, so as
to admit Scotsmen, Irishmen, or foreigners to
its benefits. This proposition, that none but an '
Englishman is meant by tho words " any
" man," which to the non-legal mind seems the
most startling, they account the clearest. But
granting them this point, there arise the fresh
questions, What is an Englishman' Is a Colonist
an Englishman I Is an East Indian officer or
merchant an Englishman 1 How long does it take
to make a Scot or an Irishman into an English.
And is the wife of an Englishman always
an Englishwoman 1 Or if she is not necessarily an
Englishwoman, what train of circumstances is re-
iquiaite to make her either English or not English?
Each of these questions—and there might be put
dozens like them—is the brief statement of legal
difficulties which have misen in actual cases, to
Impede redress when hearts were breaking and
family peace was awaiting the cautery of legal
remedies, scattered plentifully through the reports.
They have recently been collected for our conside-
ration in the minutes of evidence taken before a
Committee of the House of Lords appointed last
Session, and certainly not an hour too soor, to
Inquire into the subject_

The death of the late LORD CHANCELLOR appears
to have brought the labours of the Committee to a
conclusion for the session, and, reserving their re-
port, they have It the seentinie published the
evidence of three witnesses examincd before them,
the Quire's ADVOCATE, Dr. PIIILLIMORE, and Mr.
Macomix, Q.C. Them learned gentlemen, no
doubt thoroughly representing the legal mind,
well illustrate the dubiety of the existing law. Mr.
MAOCKERN hints that several of the decisions of
the Divorce Court are irreconcileable with each
other ; the Qrste's ADVOCATE affii-ras that he is
convinced that every one of the decisions is unim-
peachable ; Dr. PHILLIMORE says that the grounds
upon which the Court went in one of them had no
more to do with the case than the colour of the
plaintiffs hair ; and the Law Lords complete
the confusion by reminding the witnesses that
the decisions in question are still open to appeal,
and may just possibly be reversed on appeal. In
such a conflict we ilia indeed welcome any final
decision, for no law that it can possibly establish
can be worse than the uncertainty of law that at
present reigns. But though wheel the time comes
the House of Peers will of course relieve us from
any hesitation se to what the law may be, yet we
may bo allowed to hope that if it shell establish
doctrines which will compel every suitor to prove
that he is an Englishman, the Legislature will step
In to prevent the exaction of so absurd and cruel a
preliminary. For it is the belief that such is the
existing law that has led to the perpetually re.
carting questions to which we have adverted, and
the recent decisions of Sir Casiewsu. Cartswam.
which are under discussion are those in which he
had begun to intimate that the doctrine was
too strained, harsh, and useless to be really
mound in law. He had in elms case given relief to
a wife whose husband had abandoned her, settled
In America, and committed bigamy there; ;n
soother case be granted a similar remedy, although
the husband was by birth an Irishman ; in a third
case he permitted a Scotsman, long resident in
Australia, and only& temporary visitor in England,
to sue in his court. These cases may be, as Mr.
Mailgram suggests, irreconcileable with Naas at
his earlier judgments, but we must think that in
the eyes of plain common sense they may defy a
great deal of sutborite. %lake% er may be the
way in which the House of Lords shall dept with
them, they seem to us to 'Woody the correct prin-
ciples on which the Legislature should act.
Nor is there any impeds-nent to this counts in
the fact, that our somewhat sensitive neighbours
in North Britain have a court of their own, to
which they naturally desire that all born Scotsmen
should refer their domestic troubles. It is nay
too much to say, that in these days of incasement
wandering every man should be compelled to return