The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1883-10-24
Divorce or Separation.

While popular attention has been di.
rected by various agencies to the alarm
ing increase in the number of divorces
decreed by the courts throughout the
country, local interest in the subject has
been sharpened by the number and char
acter of the divorces granted by the courts
of this state. In Washington county the
hearing of the petitions of ill-assorted
couples for the unloosing of the matrimo-
NAL bond has occupied very large share of
the sessions. The divorce calendar of the
court quite equals the civil and criminal.
Washington county does not seem to be
the seat of an exceptional amount of con-
nubial infelicity. In greater or less de-
gree her sister counties are sharers in the
unhsttering record. Nor is Vermont dis
tinguished among the states of the Union
for the growing frequency of applications
for the dissolution of the marriage tie
or for the easy obtaining of dissolution.
The state of things remarked here at home
is national, worldwide, varying in degree
in different sections, but displaying every
where the same general tendencies. Sta
tistics on this subject have been published
and republished, but figures have either
no power to arrest and hold the attention
of the people or they have fallen before
careless or Indifferent readers. Mathemat-
ico olopa do NIT oaay,, 70 ba oouo1 70 A. -
task of dealing effectively with an evil of
such alarming growth. A Vermont cler-
gyman has, however, called the numerals
of the Arabic family to the stand to tell
what they know of the extent of the evil
which in the closing years of the nine
teenth century suddenly threatens the an
Inhalation of that ancient institution, the
family. Rev. S. w. Dixie shows in gem
eral way that the number of divorces has
doubled in the northern states in the last
quarter of century, and that in four of
the New England states there was an in
crease of one hundred per cent in the
eighteen years following 1860. When in
the New England States one marriage out
of every ten, as Mr.. Dike's witnesses tes.
tify, ends in divorce, it is plain that
state of things has been reached which
demands investigation and the exercise of
the most active and determined means of
reformation. The statistics of the cues.
ton further show an increase of five hun.
dred per cent in Philadelphia in the last
twenty years, against an increase of sixty
six per cent in population, while in one
county in California the elimination of
marital laxity is reached in the record of
one divorce to every three marriages.
This is cited as an exceptional case, but
in other counties in that state in whose
situation there were no exceptional condi-
tions the figures are said to be "scarcely
less reproachful," San Francisco with
ratio of one divorce to less than six mar
riages, standing in bad prominence
among the cities, as does the common
wealth of which it is the chief city among
the states of the Union.
The discussion of this subject at the re-
cent Episcopal convention in Philadel-
phia, simultaneously by the divorce re-
form league and the startling array of
statistics recently presented by the New
York Tribune were alluded to in the last
WATcHMAN. The subject in its various
phases has from time to time been dis.
cussed in this paper. 1t is not under
stood that the general correctness of the
statistics is denied. The significant feat.
ure they present is the incredible growth
of the evil to which they relate If, with
the increase of population, it were shown
that the old ratio of divorce to marriage
had not been lessened, such a result might
not be considered very flattering to the
effectiveness of modern civilizing agen.
cies, but when it appears that this ratio
increases prodigiously with the multiply
ing of the people and with the immense
development of the means of social and
religious progress, the result is 80 astound-
ing as almost to justify sharp challenge
of the trustworthiness of the statistician's
figures. BY constitutional provision and
legislative enactment, civil liberty, prop
erty rights, religious opinions, freedom of
speech, are sacredly guarded against I'M
warrantable infringement, and, better
still, by that which renders constitutional
and statutory safeguards effective,
living and jealous public sentiment.
Trial by jury, the chief among the insti-
buttons by which the civil rights of indi-
viduals are protected, for centuries has
withstood attempts at serious modifica-
ton; and generally the proposal even to
relax the rigor of the provisions of the
ancient bulwark has been frowned down.
The tendency has been rather to make it
more difficult than more easy to interfere
with the right to the enjoyment of life,
liberty and property. The family, the in
stitution upon which all human institutions
rest, does not seem to have had similar
immunity from meddling and irreverent
hands, nor to have had the benefit of an
equally sensitive and virtuous public senti-