The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1902-10-11

Three judges took turns at the d.
vorce mill yesterday, and the grist was
larger than that of Thursday, DEGREES
being granted in five cases.
Judge Brill figured in only one case
as discover of marriage bonds. That
| was the action of Mrs. Hannah Lin
| dahl against Nels w. Lindahl. The
parties were married in st. Paul in
1894 and have one child, a seven-yeaN-
| old boy. The case was tried before
the judge in June, but the decree was
| not signed till yesterday. On the trial
the plaintiff and her witnesses testified
to many acts Of cruelty that she had
suffered at the hands Of her husband,
| who, she declared, was an habitua1
drunkard.
Three broken marriages constituted
Judge Otis days work. The case Of
Mrs. May Williams against her hus-
band, Henry, involved a tale of brutal
| ity and neglect. The plaintiff was a
good looking woman Of twenty-five.
| The marriage took place at Windsor,
Ont, in 1894. Afterwards the couple
| lived at Detroit, Mich, till they came
| to st. Paul two years ago. They have
one child.
Mrs. Williams told Judge Otis that
her husband had frequently beaten her
severely; that he had left her for long
periods, when she was too i'll to leave
her bed, without anything to eat in the
house, although he was amply able to
provide for his family; and that on
one occasion, soon after the birth of
her child, he had dubbed her because
she was too weak to walk the floor with
the crying infant. 1t was a rare day in
the Williams family when the wife
could not show at least one black eye
as q token of her husbands atten-
tons.
Decree Is Granted.
This was all the court cared to hear
of that case, and the decree was or
dered. Then came Mrs. Amelia Hen
men, praying for the annulment Of the
ties binding her to Joseph, her spouse
for the last eight years. Mrs. Hen
men thought that, inasmuch as she
had been compelled to support herself
during more than half of that period,
she was entitled to go it alone" with
out the incumbrance of any marriage
complications and under her maiden
so, too.
Adrian Van der Hoeven related his
sad experience with an Intoxicated
bride. Six weeks after their marriage,
which was solemnized in Minneapolis
in 1898, the husband had returned to
his home one evening to find his girl
wife under the influence of liquor In
spite Of his efforts to reform her the
same experience befell him at frequent
intervals until last March she finally
disappeared from his life.
1t was with evident distress that the
husband, a serious and we'll educated
young man with a slight foreign &C
cent, told the story of his failure to
save the woman he loved. They had
met while both were engaged as at
tendants at st. fJosephs hospital, and
their acquaintance had continued for a
year, when the witness had asked her
to be his wife. Up to that time no hint
had come to him of the young woman's
| craving for drink. -s>''- '-'s' -
Broke Many Promises.
When the wife was intoxicated she
| became violent and could hardly be
controlled. When sober again she
| would be repentant and promise to alb
stain from drink. During one of her
outbreaks in 1900, while the plaintiff
was sick, she had attacked him with a
| knife and but for the timely arrival
of neighbors would probably have
killed him.
This led the witness to file an infor-
nation of insanity against his wife
| and she had been sent to the state in7
sane hospital at Rochester, from which
! she returned after few months great
| ly improved in health and apparently
| cured of her thirst, but the reforma-
ton lasted but for a few months.
'T regarded Mrs. Van der Hoeyen az
a moral degenerate" DR.. Charles r.
Hall declared. "She was a victim Of
! dipsomania, the disease of drink. I'm
| defStand me, she was not by any means
a regular drinker. She could go for
weeks or months without liquor and
feel no craving for it, Then would
| come period when it would be almost
| impossible for her to leave it alone.
| The condition was an inherent one. 1t
is often so. The authorities describe
| it as a disease, rather than an acquired
| habit"
Mr.. Van der Hoeven got his divorce.
Judge Kelly granted the application
| of Mrs. Bridget A. ToZier, after that
| lady had poured forth an uninterrupted
tale of woe for an hour. Life has not
| been easy for Mrs. Tozier. She had
! made two experiments in matrimony
and both had proved noteworthy fail
| ures. The first husband, John Riley
whom she married in 1892, ran away
| after a brief four months of welded
| bliss, and in March, 1895, she obtained
| a divorce from him. She retained a
| memento Of Riley in the shape of a
child, to whom she frequently referred
| as her "darlin' boy"
Then She Drew a Barkeeper.
Three months after the legal disso-
| luton with Riley the plaintiff made an
| other venture in the lottery of natri-
mony. This time she drew a bartend-
er. After helping his wife spend the
| little money she had saved by her hard
work Tozier had found that he had
no use for her except as an object on
| which to rain blows and curses and
| bad language. His wife and her chill
| dren had been for six years victims of
| his foul language, samples of which,
as recited by the witness, caused tho
courtroom to need fumigation, and the
weary and worn plaintiff begged the
judge of his mercy to set her free.
Judge Kelly did SO and gave her $12
month alimony to heal some of the
wounds bestowed by her brutal spouse.
The case of Mrs. Catherine Golden
against William Golden which was, on
the calendar for trial went over a
week. Had all the allegations of the
complaint been proved in court yester-
day another divorce would have been
added to the days long list.