The prison mirror. [volume] (Stillwater, Minn.) 1887-1894, 1893-03-09

fore, is a thorough revision and readjust-
ment of the laws governing divorce and
regulating the procedure of the court;
uniformity of legislation and action in
every State, and rigid, vigilent enforce
ment OF the law, when so revised and
amended
maintain, most emphatically, that,
Ill view OF the maintenance of the public
morals, of social purity and of domestic
happiness, adultery, bad and iniquitous
as it is, is far from being the worst, or
the most disastrous both to parents and
offspring, of the various crimes against
marital happiness and public morality.
Let us take the various breaches of the
law controlling the marital relation in
their proper order.
1. Habitu0l Drunkenness. Dissipa-
ton and DissOlute Conduct. We know
by observation and experience the bane-
fal influence and disastrous results at
tendant on that agricultural operation
pOpularly known as sowing his wild
oats" an operation inSanely glOried
in and boasted of by our "gilded youth
and wOuld-be "tOughs' in every cline
and age There is no reason whatever
for permitting or encouraging the
growth of wild oats or any such vicious
vegetation, as the product is both worth
less and injurious to the community at
large as well as to the individual him
self If this be so while the individual
remains bachelor, common sense and
common decency demonstrates most
fOrcibly, that the wild oats farmer"
should be absolutely prohibited from
assuming the marriage relation; or
when married, from continuing that
relation, and SO spreading indefinitely
the baneful influences of his reckless
disregard of all laWs-human and di-
vine The offspring, -nf-any marriage
in which either or both of the parents
are addicted to vicious indulgencieS Of
any kind cannot fail to become eXag-
gerated examples and intensified in
stances of the vices, irregularities and
diseased conditions produced and de-
velOped by those who brought them into
existence. 1t is the direct and inevita-
BILE product of such marriages that pop
ulate our hospitals, poor farms, prisons
and insane aSylumS. and establish that
under strata of pauperism, crime and
national disaster by which all large
communities are more or less afflicted.
Another cause for divorce should be
inherited or acquired insanity, mono
mania or mental alteration. Mental
disturbance, like physical disease, is in
creased in force and power by trans
mission. and, as it progresses from gen
Grafton to generation it increases in in
tenSity and virulence, until it becomes
irresistible and unconquerable. There
are mental and moral, as we'll as phys
ical epidemics. Yellow fever cholera
and typhus commence with an isolated
or obscure case, in remote section of
the city. but the mephitic influence
spreads like wild fire and speedily
slaughters it's thousands and tens of
thousands as it winds it's deSolating,
death dealing course through street and
avenue. So with the incipient germ of
mental alteration or deficiency, from
whatever cause it may arise-whether
it be mania q pOt1t, exhausted vitality,
or generally vitiated condition of the
mental and moral forces-as it is trans
mitted from parent to child, and so on
through successive generations, it is in
creased in power and disastrous results,
until race of criminals, idiots, and de-
crepit, pauperiZed individuals is perma-
nently established in the community.
In ancient times, among the SpartanS
and other tribes of ancient Greece, the
parents who transmitted to their off
spring their domestic virtues, their pa
triotism. valor, and stalwart physical
strength were honored and wOrshipped
as demi- gods. just in proportion as they
transmitted those virtues in their orig
inal force and purity. In the last cent
ury our Puritan ancestors were held in
reverence for the solid moral, mental
and physical virtues and qualities they
beuueathed in like manner to their off
spring. And so, but in much more for
chile degree, later generations of "wild
oat" sinners have foisted on the COM
munities of which they are members
an offspring distinguished by vicious.
ness, imbecility, disregard of all moral