Evening star., 1895-10-31
DIVORCE IN INDIANA.
Some of the Applicants Are Not Found
to BE Very Good Pay.

Some of the Applicants Are Not Found
to Be Very Good Pay.
| From the Chicago Tribune.
While certainh well-defined rules govern
all other trades fixing their locations and
establishing their centers, those of the di-
vorce industry seem to be as migratory as
a strong-legged tramp and as uncertain as
the marble in roulette wheel.
Indiana was the first state which ever
recognized the possibilities of mutual
profit between suitors and residents in lax
divorce laws, and for long time had
monopoly of the business. Then the laws
of Illinois were SO amended that the mar
riage bonds could be more easily united,
and Chicago had quite boom. It's advan-
tages as a place of residence during the
year of waiting were quickly recognized.
But lately the Dakotas Wyoming and Ok
lahoma offered inducements no person seek
ing a divorce could resist. But it is one
thing to secure trade and another to hold
it, and SO much fault has been found with
the divorce goods offered on western bar
gain counters that their custom is desert
ing them, and now Indiana's trade is look
ing up again, with every prospect of an in
creasng and well-maintained boom.
With twenty-nine divorces on record in
Parke county at the present date, the year
1895 will outstrip all it's predecessors be-
fore it gives up the fight on December 81.
From, every other county in the state where
the September term of court has closed
comes the report of an amazing number of
divorces trial.
Upon investigation 1t Is found that the
| common method of procuring a divorce in
western Indiana is to have the clerk of the
court make out a notice of non-residence.
The fee for this process belongs to the
clerk, but it happens that three times out
of five he never gets 1t, and it is also fact
that nearly all divorce cases are worried
along through the courts en- a dead-beat
process. Then when the complainant or
attorney asks the clerk for the papers, he
has no choice but to give them, and place
the case on the court docket ready for
hearing. Next notice is taken to the
printing office of a paper of general circu-
latiCn, and the editor is asked TO print it
four successive times. When court con-
vcnes the attorney asks the same editor for
statement showing the notice to have
been printed four times, V hich sta cement is
given the court
| Here the dead-beating process comes in
again, and the papers have inaugurated a
crusade against the practice, claiming that
not one out of four of these divorce COM
| plainants ever pay for the publication of
| the notice. They say that hereafter all
notices must De paid for hcfore they will
| testify to their having appeared which tes-
| timony is absolutely essential to a divorce
| The attorneys are also steering shy of these
manifold divorce cases, stating tha. of the
| ten to twenty in every term of the circujt
court not more than half of them are good
| pay. And still further the court officials
| are getting little weary CT This divorce
| business on the ground that II is largely
| due to these divorce suits that so much
| other important court matter must be sub
| jected to sundry docketing and, in many
cases, held over from term to term, owing
| to lack of time 10 hear it. Thus the
| moral reformers, the editors, the court
| clerks. the lawyers. the court officials in
| Indiana have at last struck a sympa thetic
| chord. and it will bind them all together
! on this divorce question. The average time
| of these divorces is found to be within
| three years after marriage.