The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-03-06
Press Notes.

The Illinois legislature failed to pro-
vide for the submission of a prohibi-
tory amendment to the vote of the
people. The vote in the senate stood
twenty-four for to twenty against, thirty
being necessary for the adoption of the
measure. The Northeastern says the
vote for it was larger than was antici-
pated, and sees in the state of the case
no reason for despair or gloom.
REAL sarcastic: Beautiful, intoxi-
eating Peoria sits on her romantic thou
sand ridges by the side of her sun
kissed distilleries, and tempts the guile
less farmer to bring his prize heifers
and stupendous hogs, his majestic
roadster and his deserving pumpkin, to
make a Peorian holiday. The state
fair of this fair state has gone to the
Cleopatra of cities. The deficit in the
gate-receipts is the asp which will
sting that glorious, corn-fed munich
pality, so redolent of sour mash and
memories of Bob Ingersoll. "-Chicogo
Ne,DS.
THE report of Mr.. Carroll D. Wright,
commissioner of labor, on the statistics
of marriage and divorce shows that
32S,716 couples have during the last
twenty years wearied of coniugal bonds
and found relief therefrom in the laxity
of divorce laws and the complaisance
of the courts. We hardly think there
can be anything definite learned from
an analysis of the causes assigned for
the granting of divorces, because of the
ease with which frauds are perpetrated
in this character of cases. When both
parties weary of an uncongenial union
it is easy to make the proof necessary
to bring the case within the statute.
with the assistance of well-read and
INSCRIPTIONS divorce lawyer. The hus-
band frequently submits patiently to
charges of cruelty, DIES rtion, neglect.
or anything else in order to end rela.
ton mutually unsatisfactory, and the
wife does the same. Divorces are fire.
quently obtained by fraud, when one of
the parties removes to another state
and becomes a resident there, the other
party being made a defendant to a d.
vorce suit by publication, trumped up
charges proven by suborned witnesses,
divorce granted, and the complainant
married again without the defendant in
this mockery of lawsuit even hear
tunity to repel the charges. The fa-
cility with which divorces are obtained
in the United States is the chief cause
for the large number that are granted,
and the ease with which matrimonial
bonds may be severed is at least as
much cause as it is the result of I'M
happy marriages .-NaShville American.
IT is not just to conclude, as an emil
nent ecclesiast has recently done, that
this country is "going to seed " be-
cause divorce is more prevalent here
than in some other lands. The moral
ity, the home happiness, the education
and care of children, and all the virtues
and other beneficent results that flow
from the conjugal relation as enioined
by religion and established by law, are
more fully eXemplified in the Ameri-
can states wherein divorce is permitted
for several reasons, than in most of the
countries where it is forbidden. A tree
is known by its fruits, and custom
should be judged by its general results,
not by theoretical objections nor eXcep-
tional abuses. In the statistics of di-
vorce for the past twenty years, just
published by the commissioner of labor,
IL appears that slNty-nVe per cent or
the whole were granted to wives
largely for desertion, cruelty and
drunkenness with unfaithfulness con-
stituting only about seven per cent of
the whole number. 1t is surely at least
a fair question for discussion whether
the welfare of society or the sacred in
stitution of home requires that wives
having such grounds of complaint
should be bound forever in iron chains
to those who have forfeited their right
to the sacred and protective title of
husband. Merely frivolous grounds of
divorce, or those based on tickle selfish
ness, should not be allowed anywhere.
But the public sentiment which sustains
more than one cause of divorce in
some of our most enlightened common
wealths is not to be lightly condemned
as corrupt or retrogressive. -The Ne,U
! York World.