The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1899-09-29

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%expedient. After that you are not SUI
prised at the announcement that in one
year there were S33 divorces. II you
want to know how easy 1t Is, you have
only to look over the records of the
states-in Massachusetts,, 600 divorces
in one year; in Maine, AIS In one year:
in Connecticut, 401 divorces in one
year; in the city of San Francisco, 333
divorces in one rear. in New England
in one year, 2,113 divorces, and in 20
years In New England, 20, 600. Is that
not easy enough? If the same ratio
continues, the ratio of multiplied divor-
ces and multiplied causes of divorce,
we are not far from the time when
courts will have to set apart whole
days for application, and all you will
have TO prove against a man will be
that he left his slippers in the middle
Of the floor, and all o will have to
prove against a woman will be that her
husbands overcoat was buttonless.
Causes of divorce doubled in a few
years-doubled in France, doubled in
England and doubled in the United
States. To show how very easy 1t is,
l have to tell you that in Western Re
serve, Ohio, the proportion OF divorces
to marriage celebrated was in n year
1 to IL; in Rhode Island, 1 to 8; in We
mont, to IA. Is not that easy enough?
SOCIEI4 DlSSOLOIE.
I w3nt you TO notice L.'- re .uency
of divorce always goes along with the
dissoluteness of society. Rome for 500
years has not n case of divorce.
Those were her days of glory and vir-
tue. Then the reign of vice began, and
divorce became epidemic. If you want
to know rapidly the empire went down
ask Gibbon. Do you know how the
reign of terror was introduced in
France? By 20, 900 cases of divorce in
one year in Paris. What we want in
this country and in all lands is that
divorce be made and more difficult.
Then people before they enter that re-
lation will be persuaded that there will
probably be no escape from it except
through the door of the sepUlcher.
then they will pause on the verge of
that relation until they are fully sat
isfied that it is best and that it is right
and that it is happiest, then we shall
have no more marriages in fun, then
men and women will not enter the rela-
tons with h idea it is only a trial
trip and if they do not like it they can
get at the first landing, Their his
whole question will be taken out of the
frivolous into the tremendous, and
there will be no more joking about the
blossoms in a brides hair than about
the cypress on a coffin.
What we want is that the congress
of the United States move for the
changing of the national constitution
SC that a law can be passed which shall
be uniform all over the country and
what shall'be right in n state shall be
right in all the states and what is
wrong in one state win be wrong in all
the states. How is it now? IF a party
in the marriage relation gets dissatis-
fed, it is only to move to an
other state to achieve liberation from
the domestic tie, and divorce is effected
so easily that the first one party knows
Of it is seeing it in the newspaper
that Rev. DR.. Somebody a few days or
weeks afterward introduced into a new
marriage relation a member of the
household who went off On a pleasure
excursion to Newport or a business eX-
'cursion to Chicago. Married at the
brides house; no cards. There are
states of the Union which practically
put a premium up on the disintegration
of the marriage relation, while there
are other states, like the state Of New
York. which has the pre-eminent idocy
of making marriage lawful at II years
and IA years of age.
CHANGE THE CONSTITUTION
The ngr of the United States
needs to move for a change of the ma
tional constitution and then to appoint
a committeeman made up of single
gentlemen, but of men of families, and
shall prepare a good, honest, righteous.
comprehensive uniform law that will
control everything from Sandy Hook
to the Golden Gate. That will put an
end to brokerages in marriage. That
will send divorce lawyers into a decent
business. That will set the people agi-
tated for many years on the question
of how they shall get away from eacn
other to planning how they AN adjust
themselves tt the more or less unfav-
orable circumstances.
More difficult divorce will put an eS-
toppal to a great extent upon marriage
as a financial speculation. There are
men who go INTO Wall street to pur-
chase shares. The female to be invited
into the partnership of wedlock is ut
terly unattractive and in disposition a
suppressed V~esuvius. Everybody knows
it, blu his masculine candidate for
matrimonial orders, through the COM
mercial agency or through the county
records, finds out how much estate is
to be inherited, and he calculates it.
He thinks out how long it will be be-
fore the old man will die and whether
he can stand the refractory temper up-
till he does die, and then he enters the
relation, for he says, eff I cannot
stand it, then through the divorce law
I will back out" That process is going
on all time. and men enter into the
relation without any moral principle,
without any affection, and it is as
much a matter of stock speculation as
anything that was transacted yester-
day in Union Pacific, Wabash and
Delaware and Lackawanna. Now, sup
pose a man understood, as he ought to
understand, that if he goes into that
relation there is no possibility of his
getting out or no probability. He would
be more slow to put his neck i'm the
yoke. He should say to himself, 'Rath-
er than a Caribbean whirlwind with a
whole fleet of shipping in it's arms
give me a zephyr off fields of sunshine
and gardens of peace"
RIGOROUS LAWS.
Rigorous divorce law will also hinder
women from THE fatal mistake of mar
ryins men to reform them. If a young
man, by rs years Of age or 80 years OF
age, have the habit of strong drinl
fixed on him, he is as certainly bound
for a drunkard's grave as that a trair
starting out from the Grand Contra
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