Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1885-02-19
WOMAN GOSSIP.
A Dissertation on the Subject of " Breach
of Promise"-Why it would not do for
Women to control Politics.
Manageable Daughters and Handsome
Coachmen-HowW Women work in 9TH
er Lands-A useful Parlor Girl.
PREACH OF PROMISE.

Miss Fortesque, the pretty actress,
has given up the silly Lord Garmoyle,
returned to him his silly letters, and
foregone her prospective claims upon
the Cairns coronet in consideration of
the payment to her of 1926, ZOO, says
The PhiEadelphtG Record. Everybody
ought to be satisfied with this arrange
ment, including Lord Garmoyle, but
most of all the ong-sutfering public,
and if we mention the topic once more
it is solely with the view of making it
the text for a brief disquisition upon
the general subject of suits for breach
of promise We are heartily in accord
with the English Judge who, not long
ago, expressed a fervent wish that the
action for breach of promise might be
abolished at once and utterly. This,
for very natural and, as we think,
sound reasons. There are two cases
where the right to sue should not be
recognized. Where a man has been
scoundrel enough to betray a loving
and weak woman under promise OF
marriage it is the criminal law which
should be invoked. On the other
hand, where the man is of such poor
stuff that he enters lightly into a con-
tract of the most serious and sacred
sort, and breaks it as lightly, we do not
think that the matter is of sufficient
Importance to warrant the setting in
motion of the whole machinery of the
law This for good reasons: The wo-
man has suffered no loss through her
failure to obtain such husband; or it
is altogether probable that she is as
frivolous and faithless as himself. AS
to another category OF cases, where
the man was worth having and the
woman was sincerely in love with him,
and the match was broken off because
he realized fully the responsibilities of
the projected union, and had doubts
whether it would prove a happy one,
there is no need here of the action for
there is yet time, to withdraw from an
engagement which means ultimate mis-
cry to two lives, and the Womanly
course is to permit such a withdrawal.
In point of fact, in the great majOrity
of cases the institution Of a suit for
breach of promise is prima facie evil
dence that the plaintiff S affections are
not of sort to suffer injury by the
non-fulfillment of matrimonial con-
tract.
There remains the rare and excep-
tiOnal cases where women of worth are
contemptuously am heartlessly Tilted
by masculine tlirts, and here it seems
to us that the ends of justice would be
met by intrusting the sound horse
whipping of the offender to a male rel
ative or friend We admire faithful
and long-enduring love and chivalrous
devotion, and are glad that Miss For
tesque is to ''crown the flame" of the
gentleman whom she threw over when
the coronet was dangled before her
nose. But we should not regard her
previous faithlessness as having been
atoned for and wiped out by her &C
quaintance with a soft-headed snob,
her parade before the scandal
loving population of two hemispheres,
and her extensive transaction in docu-
mentary evidence that must have been
of anything but an edifying character.