The Bloomfield times. [volume] (New Bloomfield, Pa.) 1867-187?, 1871-04-11
RATHER MIXED.
A QUESTION ANSWERED

DISCARDED LOVER. .''--"I loved, and still
love, the beautiful Edwitha Howard, and in
tended to marry her. Yet, during my tempo
rary absence at Benicia, last week, alas she
married Jones. Is my happiness to be thus
blasted for life Z Have no redress? 2"
nF COURSE you have. All the law
" written and unwritten, is on your
side. The intention and not the act con-
stitutes crime--in other words, constitutes
the deed. If you call your bosom friend
fool, and intended it for an insult, it is
an insult but if you do it playfully, and
meaning no insult, it is not an insult. If
you discharge pistol accidentally, and
kill man, you can go free, for you have
done no murder; but if you try to kill
a man, and manifestly intend to kill him,
but fail utterly to do it, the law still holds
that the intention constituted the crime,
and you are guilty of murder. Ergo, if
you had married Edwitha accidentally,
and without really intending to do it, you
would not actually be married to her at
all, because the act of marriage, could not
be complete without the intention. And
ergo, in the strict spirit of the law, since
you deliberately Intended to marry Ed
witha, and didn't do it, you are married
to her all the same-because, as 1 said
before, the intention constitutes the crime.
1t is as clear as day that Edwitha is your
wife, and your redress lies in taking
club and mutilating Jones with it as much
as you can. Any man has right to
protect his own wife from the advances
of other men. But you have another
alternative--you were married to Edwitha
first, because of your deliberate intention
and now you can prosecute her for bigamy
in subsequently marrying Jones. But
there is another phase in this complicated
case You Intended to marry Edwitha,
and consequently, according to law, she
is your wife-there is no getting around
that but she didn't marry you, and if she
neUer intended to marry you, you are not
her husband, of course. Ergo, in marry
ing Jones, she was guilty of bigamy, be-
cause she was the wife of another man
at the time which is all very we'll as far
as it goes-but then don't you see, she
had no other husband when she married
Jones, and consequently she was not
guilty Of bigamy. Now according to this
view of the case, Jones married spinster
who was ,oiloD at the same time, and
another mans toite at the same time, and
yet who had no husband and neUer had
one, and never had any intention of get
ting married and therefore, of course,
never had been married, and, by the
same reasoning, you are bachelor, be-
cause you have never been any ones hus-
band; and a married man, because you
have wife living; and to all intents and
purposes aoido,cer, because you have
been deprived of that wife; and con-
summate ass for going off to 3enicia in
the first place, while things VIC g so mixed
And by this time / have got myself SO
tangled up in the intricacies Of the ex-
traordinary case, that shall have to give
up any further attempt to advise you'll
might get confused and fail to make my
self understood. think I could take up
the argument where I left off, and by
following it closely awhile, perhaps |
could prove to your satisfaction, either
that you never existed at all, or that you
are dead now, and consequently don't
need the faithless Edwitha-I think
could do that, if it would afford you any
comfort.-MARK TWAIN.