The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1893-08-24

liz ~ aux IISSii alS-
cussions and is always receiving fresh /
settlements.
Men do not earnestly and angrily dis |
cuss the question of the sun rising In the /
east, although, to be sure, it is not very /
long since prophet arose in Pennsyl- /.
vania to declare that the earth is station T.
airy and the sun revolvant, but as a gen
eral 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 righteousness 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 i'll 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 antidivorce league,
pledged to use their best endeavors to
procure uniform divorce law in all our
states, and that law to be of the most
stringent, only allowing divorce for the
| Scriptural otfense, 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 Cresswelrs 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.
If the English law had set Mr.. Lewes
free from his profigate wife, he and
Mary Ann Evans would have been
quietly married according to law, and
the great novelist would not have left
upon her name stain which, however
affection and respect may gid it, re-
mains precisely the same stain attaching
to the name of any other woman who
lives with man legally married to an
other woman. Or look at Charles Nor
daunt, whom the English law refused
to set free from woman whose ex-
cesses had driven her to insanity.
On that trial and from other sources
it has been all too plainly proven that
the rigid English law of divorce Of so
years ago did not succeed in guarding
the sanctity of the marriage covenant
or the honor and peaceof the family any
more etfectually than the laxest of our
western state regulations, and to say a
divorce is more easily procured in Lon
don 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 q divorce for almost any
conceivable cause. do not vouch for
the exactness of this statement, but can
we'll believe it after some incidents of
travel in the west Among these was a
, brief companionship with young girl of
/ II years hailing from Chicago. After
2 half an hours acquaintance this young
q lady, who was as pretty and as silly as
any girl have ever met anywhere, con
fided to me that she and "Charlie" made
two of party to visit Milwaukee fol
the day, and as the theater ''kept late
they missed the train they had planned
to take home. In this dilemma some
F. one suggested that the young men hat
better marry the girls, and then it would
> be quite correct to go to hotel. Three
couples accepted the proposition, an(
j. she and Charlie became man and wifi,
}. after an acquaintance of about fort
}. night.
}: "And where is Charlie now?' venture(
Ii l., seeing that the poor child was evident
ly alone.
"Oh, he's at home in Chicago" replie'
, she carelessly. He's in a store AM
! don't get enough to buy his salt. let alon
my hats. | reckon I'll stop east awhil
II with some friends and then get di
vorce. We were only fooling when w
n got married, you know, and we dom
Id get along first rate anyhow"
t. And what do your parents say abou
"' itT' asked l. But the girl tossed her hea
in pretty scorn at the idea of parenta
N interference.
rs 81 guess they haven't got much to sa
rs about it. Pas gone off to Mexico Q
s. somewhere, and mas just got marie
I'd again and is glad to be shut Of me
u Reckon can paddle my own canoe with
x out their help"
a. Now, between the laxity which rel
"a ders such story as this possible-and
. assure you it is absolutely true story
X and the rigidity which drove Geore
N Lewes and Mary Ann Evans to open d,
a. fance of law there lies a vast distanc
| .,f1, ,,,aIj,,,, TO,
= the true solution of the problem lie
IL which again reminds me of learne
5O joke first narrated and then explained /
~ me by a gentleman from Boston du
- ing my late western tour.
~ 1t seems that Professor Agassiz, wit
- some other learned pundits of Bosto1
| was unwrapping a recently importe
~ mummy and disputing as to its bei1
IL that OF priest, a fact presently esta
ished by their coming upon the mumn
Is of an ibis in the midst of the swathin
VA of the human mummy, whereupon Aga
in siz triumphantly exclaimed:
&C "Veritas, in medals res tutissima ibis
to By way of coming down softly fro
mo- these Athenian heights l will add to IL
~, anecdote one from my own experien
mn more familiarly illustrating the sal
et- theory. l was having my photogra
TO, taken by a very charming foreigner,
Gently acquainted with the Engli
n tongue, and he, after various efforts
3oo get the proper expression upon my fa
exclaimed
Not too severe and not too smili1
" but let us find a happy middling if
G would be perfect"
- One would not of course be fipps
- upon subject like this, involving as
~ does the deepest and most vital intere
~ of so many human beings, and althou
'nu it has undeniably its humorous side
On, general aspect is one of profound s.
'n VI. ness and perplexity.
ni' Two persons marry. Perhaps they
,oe' in the first flush of youth, with all so
d. of rose colored ideals confidently set