The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-11-15


living together insupportable" can be
shown. Consequently, many New
Workers have gone to these states to
obtain divorces on grounds which were
oftentimes ludicrous. Only recently
New York woman brought suit for di-
Vorce in Missouri, and in her statement
she charged her husband as follows:
He never kissed me when he came
home from work The first two years
he always used to kiss me, both in
the morning when he left the house
and in the evening when he came
home. Then he forgot to kiss me at
night. 1 forgave him for that, be-
cause 1 thought he was tired, but
when he began to go away in the
morning without so much as even a
tap on my wrist, 1 knew that he didn't
love me any more. Finally, one morn
ing I sco1ded him for forgetting me,
and he treated me cruelty"
Then the judge asked:
ment?"
Why, he said I made him tired"
replied the plaintiff.
The divorce was granted.
Because of the decision Of the United
States Supreme Court. in the case of
Elliot against Elliot, it is now impos-
s1ble to obtain a divorce in a State
unless the parties to the marriage have
acquired a full legal residence in the
state. This ruling, however, only COM
pels a little longer residence, and only
"prolorgs the agony" as one jurist ex-
pressed it.
80 many unhappy Fasteners have
settled in Oklahoma with the purpose
OIL shaking off their matrimonial fet-
ters' that even the Indians at last
caught the contagion. In July of last
year the black and red inhabitants of
Guthrie. Okla,., were astounded to
hear that Spah-Pah-Bear. an Indian
more than seventy years old, had sued
for divorce from his squaw,
Mad Bear. It was the first
divorce case in Indian history.
Spah-Pah- Bear charged his wife with
all sorts of iniquities, and among them
was 'infldelity,' abandonment" gross
neglect" and ''carelessness in her
household duties" The old buck won
his case, and Mad Bear was all that
her name signified.
AS result of American methods or
obtaining divorces it is frequently the
case that the husband of one wife is
supporting two or three other families
of children as the result of former mar
riages and divorces. Only a short time
ago a prominent citizen of this city
and a member of one of it's oldest
families sought to cut down the amount
of alimony which he was paying one
wife and set of children because he
had such large family by his second
wife that his income was not large
enough to go around. When his first
wife secured a divorce the court
awarded her $4,000 a year. After the
decree the man remarked. and it was
not long before he sought to lessen
somewhat the burden of the courts
order and he obtained from the APP
pellate Division of the Supreme Court
the right to pay only $4,000 a year,
and that his former wife took two
thirds of it. For this reason. he said,
he was unable to support himself and
his present family except in beggarly
fashion. But the first wife was reso-
lutte, and, carrying the case to the
New York State Court of Appeals, she
was finally successful in getting back
the full $4,000.
Because of the ease with which di-
vorces may be obtained in this country
it is common to find women with a
half dozen hyphens in their names.
Each hyphen represents a. divorce or
death. In a Chicago court last August
a woman appeared in a divorce suit who
gave her name as Mrs. Grace Shell
Coffin Coffin -Walker-C Coffin Layman.
Although she had married Mr.. Coffin
three times and been as many times di-
Vorced from him, she had brought this
last suit to marry him again. The last
marriage from which she desired to be
free was solemnized only a few months
before the divorce suit was begun. Mr..
Layman and she soon parted, however,
for he had told her he had no money. On
the first day of the divorce proceedings
she received a telegram from him say
ing that he now had a position in a
New York hotel as a clerk, with a sal
airy of $3.50 a month. With such an
income, he said, he knew she would
again be happy. He said he was "aw-
fully sorry" that he had gone away,
and wanted to be taken back. Her
only answer was a mol" with three
exclamation points after it. According
to her friends, she followed this brief
telegram to Mr.. Layman with another
one to Mr.. Coffin, which read: