The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1893-07-12
DIVORCES ARE DISCUSSED;
MRS. FRANK LESLIE CAN SPEAK ON
THE SUBJECT EN- CATHEDRAL.
A COnundrum without an Answer
Three Glasses of Wfves-The Dogs
i'm the Manger-Those Who Have the
Right of Release.

cussed, never settled when it keeps COM
ing up for fresh discussions and is al
ways receiving fresh settlements.
Men do not earnestly and engrily dis
cuss the question of the sun rising in
the east. although. to be sure, it is not
very long since a prophet arose in Penn
sylvania to declare that the earth is sta
tionary and the sun revolvant, but as
general thing that subject as well as the
fact that two and two make four has
been settled and laid away some time
since along with the veraciousness of
George Washington and the supremacy
Of the American eagle over all the fowl
that fly.
Among these ever to be debated and
never settled subjects there is not one,
especially in our own country, so impos-
sible to decide, so keenly debated, so We
hemently decided first on the one side
and then on the other. as divorce.
A large body Of persons, and many Of
them among the very best and wisest of
our people. clergymen, statesmen and
leaders of public thought, have banded
themselves in an anti-divorce league,
pledged to use their best endeavors to
procure a uniform divorce law in all our
states, and that law to be of the most
stringent, only allowing divorce for the
scriptural oflense. and even in that case
not without final proof and great and
protracted effort.
Our English cousins, always prone to
the conservative course and as fond of
red tape as they are of red beef. until
the establishment of Sir CresswelIs di-
vorce court, have tried this method of
rigid legislation upon divorce, and not
with the most fortunate results. Look,
for instance, at the life Of George Eliot.
II the English law had set Mr.. Lewes
free from his profiigate wife he and
Mary Ann Evans would have been quiet
ly married according to law and the
great novelist would not have left upon
her name a stain which, however affec-
ton and respect may gid It. remains
precisely the same stain attaching TO
the name Of any other woman who lives
with man legally married TO another
woman. or look at Charles Mordaunt,
whom the English law refused to set
free from a woman whose excuses had
driven her to insanity.
On that trial and from other sources
it has been too plainly proven that the
rigid English law of divorce of fifty
years ago did not succeed in guarding
the sanctity of the marriage covenant
or the honor and peace of the family
any more effectually than the laxest of
our western state regulations, and to
say a divorce is more easily procured in
London than in New York-our state
being especially rigid in this respect,
and a New York divorce smirching only
the character of the one against whom
the judgment is rendered and forbidding
a subsequent marriage by the offending
party.
In some parts of the far West it is
said one may get a divorce for almost
any conceivable cause. 1 do not vouch
for the eXactness of this statement
but can we'll believe il after some Gin
cidents of travel in the West Among
these was a brief companionship with a
young girl Of seventeen years hailing
from Chicago. After half an hours ac-
quaintance this young lady, who was as
pretty and as silly as any girl 1 have
ever met anywhere, cOnfided to me that
she and Charlie" made two of a party
TO visit Milwaukee for the day. and as
the theater kept late they missed the
train they had planned TO take home.
In this dilemma some one suggested
the girls. and then ii would be quite
correct to go to a hotel. Three couples
accepted the proposition, and she and
Charlie became man and wife after an
acquaintance Of about a fortnight
And where is Charlie now?" ven
tured I. seeing that the poor child was
evidently alone.
"Oh, he's at home in Chicago" re-
piled she, carelessly Hes in a store
and don't get enough to buy his salt.
let alone my hats. 1 reckon I'll stop
east awhile with some friends and then
get a divorce. We were only fooIing
when we got married, you know, and we
don't get along first rate anyhow"
And what do your parents say about
it?" asked 1. But the girl tossed her
head in pretty scOrn at the idea of par
entail interference.
81 guess they haven't got much to say
about it. Pas gone off to Mexico or
somewhere, and mas just got married
again and is glad to be shut of me-
Reckon l can paddle my own canoe
without their help"
Now, between the laxity which rem
ders such a story as this possible-and
/ assure you it is absolutely a true
story-and the rigidity which drove
George Lewes and Mary Ann Evans to
open defiance Of law there lies a vast
distance, happy medium, wherein, to
my mind, the true solution Of the prob
lem lies which again reminds me of a
learned joke, first narrated and then ex-
planned to me by a gentleman from
Boston" during my late western tour
1t seems that Prof. Agassiz, with some
other learned pundits of Boston. was
unwrapping a recently imported mummy
and diSputing to its being that of a
priest, a fact presently established by
their coming upon the mummy Of an
ibis in the midst of the swarthings of
the human mummy, whereupon Ag-
ASST triumphantly exclaimed:
'Veritas, in medals res tutissima ibisp'
BY way of coming down softly from
these Athenian nights 1 will add to this
anecdote one from my own experience
more Familiarity Illustrating the same
theory. / was having my photograph
taken by very charming foreigner, re-
Gently acquainted with the English
tongue, and he, after various efforts to
get the proper expression upon my face,
exclaimed:
Not too severe and not too smiling,
but let us find happy middling if we
would be perfect"
One would not OF course be flippant
| upon a subject like this, involving as ii
does the deepest and most vital interests
of so many human beings, and although
| IL has undeniably its humorous side the
general aspect is one of profound sad
ness and perpleXity.
Two persons marry. Perhaps they are
in the first flush of youth, with all sorts
| of rose colored ideals confidently set be-
| fore their eyes, or perhaps they are older,
and having already known sorrow and
| disappointment and disbursement
fancy they have at last found a COM
panion whose sympathy and comrade-