The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1892-09-01
Divorce.

truths might soak their silent, but elo-
quent way into the hearts of all, naturally
suggests divorce as the theme next in
order. There exists between divorce and
matrimony a close affinity, as there has
never yet been discovered a method by
which divorce could be satisfactorily in
dulged in unless preceded by the custom
airy marriage.
We would not be understood by this to
infer that the contracting parties, when
they blushingly exchange their vows and
| jack-knives and hair and rings and kisses
and other personal property, have their
| thoughts on divorce as the ultimate and
natural end of their cooling For | sin
cerely trust and believe that visions of a
divorce court never disturb the soft
dreams Of the fond pair, who really and
during love as as is felt for Grover Cleve-
land by the average Grand Army man.
But alas! and alas. it is a fact only too we'll
established, that the cooling sometimes
subsidies in manner more remarkable for
speed than grace, and thoughts of divorce
obtrude with the persistency of an office
seeker Marriages OF matches, they tell us,
are made in heaven. This may be true.
Having never been there myself, | am I'M
able to say. But that they are broken
with considerable eciu on earth, no one
| think, can deny. But wherever they
may be made, and some of them smell!
very strongly OF earth, they are not broken
with such adamantine persistence here in
the tame and tranquil east as in the glori-
Gus west. In that phenomenal land OF
rich promises and unreaped expectations
where nothing is ever slow or small,
where the rise in real estate is prodigious,
and its fall correspondingly magnificent,
where wonderful cities are born in day
and die in a night, where investors become
marvelously rich in a short space Of time,
and astonishingly poor in a shorter space,
divorce is INDUCED in on colossal scale
1t is said, but | will not swear to the truth
of the statement, that gentlemen, and lad
les too, in that elysium of boomers keep
gallery. And this gallery is nothing more
nor less than the portraits of all the hus
bands or wives, as the case may he, the
owner may have had the fortune or mis-
fortune to possess. In a land where
divorce is the rule, and to persons afflicted
with a short memory, the gallery is I'M
doubtedly useful, and must prove of in
| estimable value in the avoidance of pain
full repetitions. 1t has occurred to me,
that it must be pathetic sight TO see Il
man, when his son shall have arrived at
the years of discretion. take him by the
:. hand and leading him along the gallery,
| show him the likeness of his mother, and
the portraits of his long, illustriolls line
of stepmothers, proud, fair haired DANES,
who traced their ancestry back to the eX
| piring echo of the naughty red man $ war
4 whoop.
In considering the divorce question,
! however, it is not intended at the present
| time, to look at it from the western point
of view, where a man can be divorced
| from his wife OF ticc reysu as easily as a
] Democrat can lie about the tariff: but
from the more humble easter stand
point. Looking at it then, fl ON this
| lowly point, it viii be we'll in the frs
place to consider those who believe
divorce to be wholly and radically wrong
who believe it to be pernicious, even
when INDUCED in with the utmost circum-
spcction. They may be right | will not
venture to dispute them. Indeed make
it point, like the man you have probably
all seen, of never disputing any thing
| anybody may say. But at the same time
| should very much like to know what Il
sensitive, nervous woman can be expected
to do with a husband who has a cheerful.
breezy habit of knocking her down, and
having a general all around game Of foot
days out of the week. believe this sort
OF thing is calculated to wear on il woman
in time, especially if she is at all inclined
10 be aesthetic in her tastes. And almost
think that the resignation and trust in
this, that on the other preached by some
hardly meets all the requirements of the
case In fact | am inclined to believe that
| ii i woman cannot muster up the moral
courage to kill such a man, perhaps after
all. the best thing She can do is to appeal
to the law. But there are other reasons
beside kicking and beating that drive the
once loving Wife or duting husband to an
anxious perusal of the divorce laws Of the
State. Fraudulent representations before
/ marriage have often sown the seeds of
discomfort by the tireside or the kerosene
oil stove. Representations made hV crafty
men and willy women, calculated to de
cei%e the guileless and rope in the unsus-
pecting individual to his OF her undoino
on doing UP OF roasting. OF words to that
effect. If a man in the imbecile DAYS of
his coultship rashly promises to furnish
carriages and servants and pie three times
day and pug dog, he should be rigidly
held to his word, nor should so much as
one curl of the dear dog $ darling tail be