The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Stroudsburg, Pa.) 1853-1911, 1860-06-28

Social Disorders.

SVO2dA OloVIGCkos
TIE divorce mania is pow fashionable
Non only divorce, but rich and frasrar
GRIM. con. eases, elopements, and seduc
tion in all its varieties, have for the tin
absorbed the interest usually appropria
ted to suicides, wife poisonings and priz
fights. The Weymouth case, the fate o
Rev.J. S. Harden, and the excitement ovel
the national mill at Marlborough Heath
are likely to be forgotten in the considera
ton of phase, of human frailty and crime
equally as degrading-a phase, boweve,
much moro acceptable to the contemplation
of the scanda al. mongers of the eommuyitn
The legal divorce business cannot be 9th.
erwise than an agreeable substitute fol
that which has been, during the past
twelve months, carried on by arsenic. cor
rosive sublimate and stryehnine. From
Maine to Texas, from the eastern to the
western seaboard, an irrepressible con.
fict seems to be raging among husbands
and wives; domestic dereliction the rule,
and family felicity the exception. Old
gray-haired sinners, trembling upon the
verge of the graves into which they should
have tumbled in their early manhood, are
revealed as sedueers, roues, or obtained
newspaper notoriety as appellants at court
for severance from their young and giddy
wives. Wives supposed to have been par
agons of piety and virtue, with lavish
display of affection, and the bestowed of
unlimited tokens of copjugal epdearment,
ask their confding husbands for leave to
go into the country to visit their relatives
and the permission gained, they disappear.
meet their "gay Lotharios" at the ap-
pointed Rendezvous, and after the enjoy
ment of good time," get up a grand
de'aouenaemt of discovery and detection IN
fragrant delactu for the especial benefit Of
the courts, lawyers and newspapers, A
school boy elopes with an institute miss"
to use midwife's phrase, "dry
behind her ears" and both are cast off
by their stern parents, who are inexora-
bic in the matter of position and pedi-
gree. The girl becomes the mistress of
a young man high in social standing"
and the youthful husband takes to su-
perAuity of gin and despair, which fact
at last coming to the knowledge of the a.
baDdoned wife induces her to resort to
Intellectual attempts at suicide. Such
case was that, not long since, at Rocbes-
name of the boy husband and
eirl-wife being Charles Cook and Mary
G. Bethel.
Only few weeks ago, pretty young
woman of the ominous and unlucky name
of Brown, ran away from her home in
Lowell, Mass, and went to New Bedford
with young man, where being deserted
By the 6ckle loser and cast off by her
parents, she tried to get out of the world
By drowning She was rescued and thus
probably reserved for the living death of
prostitution.
The Great Burch case,' now in pro-
gress at Chicago, is another of the oft-re-
curing disclosures Of the infelicity of con-
jugal life, where the Money God has full
sway. Mr.. Burch, banker, and to all
outward appearance a man eminent for
bis kindliness of disposition, strict integ-
rity and intense 6eGotion to bis wife,
proves, when the cxpoSe comes, to be
domestic Nero-a being combining in him
self the characteristics of an overhearing
Pecksnif and Che hypocrisy of Heep.
He deserts his wife and accuses her of in.
fidelity and lewd intercourse with num-
Der of men, and more particularly with
lawyer of Chicago, an member of Con-
gress, whose character before had seemed
scandal proof. The banker files bis COM
plant and sues for divorce. To his ap-
peal his wife enters protest denying all
bis charges, and in replication accuses
him OF harsh treatment o>her, of using
threats and even force to compel her to
sign false confession of criminal inti-
macy with others. What the end of this
affair will be. is difficult to foresee. Of
its effect upon the community, but one re.
suit can follow, that OF half dozen or
more cases just like it. Divorce, like any
other epidemic is catching.