The labor world. [volume] (Duluth, Minn.) 1896-current, 1903-12-12
"a JUDGMEN T{ AND=MoRAL
Lesson Drawn From an. Unusua!
Breach Of Promise Suit.
From the Detroit Free Press:

from the Detroit Free Press:
Actions for breach o. promise OF
marriage have long been regarded with
disfavor and even with suspicion ir,
this country. They are almost never
instituted by men, however much a
man may feel himself aggrieved or
wronged or injured by the breaking
OF promise of marriage. Women who
institute breach of promise suits are
so frequently actuated by dubious, if
not criminal, motives, that the average
jury, unless the case is exceptional
is likely to award merely nominal
damages to the plaintiff when her case
in law is sufficiently strong to neces-'
state judgment against the defend
ant. When a jury awards considera-
BILE judgment against the defendant
in such proceedings, the case of the
plaintiff must have been exceedingly
strong and the conduct of the defend
ant inexcusable and Infamous.
In these days Of the promiscuous
and unchaperoned relations of the sexes
great deal of trifling with human
affections is tolerated both by public
sentiment and by the courts, unless
our friends the joke writer's, have sad
" slandered the summer girl and her
masculine contemporary: but there is
trlfilng and trifling. The jury in The
Adams-Baker breach of promise case
at Grand Rapids very wisely decided
that when young man very deliber-
ately made plaything of an innocent
young woman and then cold-bloodedly
tossed her aside he should be made to
pay for it and handsomely To some
a judgment Of 100000 may seem OK.
cessive, and yet it may be doubted IL,
under such circumstances, any judy
ment is excessive which a defendant
is capable of paying for the injuries
sustained by the young woman in the
case. Indeed, there are few men who
would wish daughters of theirs to un-
dergo what Henrietta Adams under
went for all the money ever coined 1T
mint, and this view Of the case seems
to have appealed to the jurors who
heard the evidence.
Much may be forgiven the exuber-
ance and indiscretion Of youth, but
in Bakers case there is little to for
give. He seems to have shown the
instincts OF a Thoroughbred black
guard in his relations with Miss Ad-
ans and in his subsequent treatment
of her. In more primitive state Of
society he would have been shot down
like dog by the girls father or bro
Their, and even in the twentieth CEN
fury, in the face of a judgment for
$4,000, he may thank fortune that
the girl he Tilted did not live south Of
Mason and Dixon's line. where breach
of promise affairs are settled still IN
an elementary manner without an ap-
peal to the courts.
Aside from this, however, the case
brilliantly Eliminates certain phase
of American society which foreigners
have never found themselves able to
comprehend. A young girl Of good fam
lily and good training and good IN
stincts selects without advice of any
kind, her young men friends. One of
them she falls in love with and becomes
engaged to, without consulting her ia
Their; or her family, or taking them in
to her confidence. She carries on all
indiscreet correspondence with her fl
ance in perfect confidence that his pas
sionate words mean all they seem t.
mean. One morning she awakes from
her dream to find that he has married
another woman and then her family
obtains their first definite information
concerning her engagement and its
pitiful consequences. The French
method of making marriages may NOT
be all it might be; but our own method
of managing such affairs leaves some
thing to be desired. We seem to have
gone as far to one extreme as thu
French to another, in the absurd belief
that because girl is an American
girl, she has gained a dominion over
certain instincts which even the saints
of the Church never pretended.