The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-12
LEGAL INTELLIGEN CH.
"UNTIL DEATH DO US PART,
The Marriage Vow and Its Binding Force i'm
the Nineteenth Century-Blg Divorce Case.

Court of Common Pleds-JIdge ParsOn.
That part of history which is called modern
refers us back to times, not perhaps within the
memory of an old inhabitant, but relatively re-
cent, when our Christian ancestors regarded a
wife not only as a social partner through life,
but thing of property and subject of
ownership, and her resistance to the will OF her
husband and master was almost petit treason
and punishable by him with severe corporal
chastisement. In the good old days of England,
whose laws on the subject OF husband and wife
were principally derived from the wise Romans,
q suit for divorce at the instance of the wife was
as rare as Cardiff Giants. But, the learned writers
tell us, as society increased in numbers and in
knowledge, new circumstances occurred which
called for new regulations, novel refinements
and luxuries were born attended by novel evils.
AS society grew large natural rights and liber-
ties became proportionally circumscribed and
were sacrificed to the new order of things, as
the price of the privilege of living in society
and of the boon of being rescued from solitary
exile upon the Great Sahara. Accordingly, we
of the nineteenth century have so beautifully
advanced from the simple state of nature to So
cial perfection that Cardiff Giants have become
prolific and divorces SO numerous as to be quite
common. In our sister States, Indiana and
Illinois, they turn out better annual crops of
divorces than of corn and wheat; down East
divorces have flourished as the natural soil has
grown poor; In the backwoods OF Kentucky and
Tennessee husbands and wives trade each other
off for horses, dogs, and guns, and, instead Of
being censured, are only laughed at; and in
New York divorces are got up in truly sensa-
tonal style as grand advertisements for public en-
tertainment, in like manner as the Black Crook,
While Fdlcn and ItCetUe Temptations. Until
q recent date our State has been blessed with
an exemption from the epidemic divorce (no
thanks to late Legislatures), and husbands and
wives have hitherto felt quite secure in the
possession of one another; but now a dark cloud
looms up in the horizon, which threatens a
storm that may try the ship of domestic happi-
ness to its uttermost, for there has been pending
in this Court for some time past divorce suit
of the style of 1870, and said to be rare, rich,
and racy; high life, plenty of money, formerly a
happy couple, and the suit is brought by the
| wife. Louisa +. Koecker is the libellant, and
| DIR. Leonard r. Koecker, the dentist,
the respondent. In all the city there is
| probably not gentleman more uniyer'
sally or more fayorably known than the Doctor
! He is a man of varied taste and numerous ac-
| cOmplishments, an amateur of all the arts
| painting, music literature, mechanics-in short
he is known among his friends as capable
| of doing anything, from writing tragedy
to making whip top. His genial temperament
| has made him favorite in the drawing-room
and his thorough knowledge of his business has
| secured him one of the best dental practices IL
| the city. He was one of the most active of thu
parties who first established the Seventeenth
| Street Drawing where, during the war, h'
| frequently rendered his services in the enter
tainments given in aid of charitable objects.
Mrs. Koecker is a lady of fine family, excel
lent talents, and splendid accomplishments, an
is said to have recently fallen heir to hand
some fortune left by the decease of relative i
Paris.
The parties have been married twenty-fou
wears, and are believed to have lived most haI
pily together until within two or three year
past, when a difficulty occurred concerning th
house in which the Doctor resides. 1t is sal
that when he purchased the property It ",
encountered, and as matter OF safety he pl
the title in her name. In the course of ten
twelve years he succeeded in paying off most
the debts upon it, when he discovered tn
the lady had made will devising 1t away fro
him. He demanded reconyeyance to him, whlt
was refused, and hence ensued difficult
and complications, which gre