The Roanoke times. [volume] (Roanoke, Va.) 1890-1895, 1893-08-08

- W. Ill., oocJSSV 10 dllNC anu
GSS{&-N although much dis
w III when it keeps COM
ing up for fresh dis
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 q prophet arose in Pennsyl-
yania to declare that the earth is station
airy and the sun revolvant, but as gem
eral thing that subject us 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 tho supremacy of the
American eagle over all the fowl that fy.
Among these ever to be debated and
never settled subjects there is not one,
especially in our own country, so impos-
slbie 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
III 0u dIlllulNOTc6 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 offense, 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 Crcsswcll's di-
vorcc court have tried this method of
rigld legislation upon divorce, and not
with the most fortunate results. Look.
for instance, at the life of George Eliot.
IL the English law had set Mr.. Lcwes
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 u stain which. however
affection and respect may gild 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 mt Charles Nor
daunt, whom tho English law refused
to set free from II 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 peace of the family anv
more ctfcctually than the laxest of our
western state regulations, and TO say q
divorce IS more easily procured III 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 Il
subsequent marriage by the offending
party.
In some parts of the far west it is said
one may get IL divorce for almost any
conceivable cause. do not vouch for
the eXactness of this statement, but can
well believe it after some incidents of
travel" in the west. Among these was a
brief companionship with Il young girl of
II years hailing from Chicago. After
half an hours acquaintance this young
lady, who was as pretty and as silly as
any girl have ever met anywhere, con-
ided to me that she and "Charlie' made
two OF party to visit Milwaukee for
the day. and as the theatcr kept late"
they missed the train they had planned
to take home. In this dilemma some
one suggested that the young men had
better marry the girls, and then it would
be quite correct to go to Il hotel. Three
couples accepted the proposition, and
she and Charlie became man and wife
after an acquaintance of about a fort
night.
And where is Charlie now venturcd
seeing that the poor child was evident
ly alone.
ooh, he's at homo i'll Chicago - replied
she carelessly. He's III Il store and
don't get enough to buy his salt, let alone
my hats. reckon I'll stop east awhile
with some friends and then get a di-
vorce. We were only fooling when we
got married, you know, and we don't
get along first rate anyhow"
And what do your parents say about
it, asked l. But the girl tossed her head
III pretty scorn at the idea of parental
interference.
Il 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 with
out their help"
Now, between the laxity which rem
ders such story as this possible-and I
assure you it is absolutely true story
and the rigidity which drove George
Lewes and Mary Ann Evans to open de-
fiance of law there lies q vast distance