The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-08-20
DOMESTIC SECRETS.
Investigation on Divorce Evil Causes
CONSERVATION N Few York.

New York, Aug. 2O.-Twelve of the
brightest and most skillful women
clerks in the department of commerce
and labor of the bureau of census in
vaded the county court house yester-
day, marshaled by William H. Jarvis,
and installed themselves in the Surro-
gates court. They will hold possession
every day for some eight weeks, when
the room is not needed by the Surro-
gate. In that time they expect to go
over the divorce records of New York
county for 20 years. Examinations of
similar records will be made simultan-
eously in every principal county of
every state in the United States, for
the purpose of collecting information
which will be used in framing a bill
for the federal supervision of divorces,
just as there is federal supervision
of bankrupts. The examiners are
scheduled to reach Pittsburg in about
two weeks.
The men and women employed in the
census bureau are required not only to
possess intelligence but good memory.
Every employee is under bond not to
reveal information, under pain of $500
fine or term of imprisonment, or
both. The twelve women and the eight
men brought on from Washington were
selected with especial reference to
their fitness and their loyalty.
The making up of the statistical ia
BILE will necessarily bring out of the
secret vault where it was locked up
by order of the court the evidence in
the case of Mrs. Perry Belmont, for
merly Mrs. Henry T. Sloane, by whom
she was divorced in April, 1899. She
was married five hours after the de-
cree. The evidence in the case never
has been made public. Neither was
the evidence made known in the IA
Reeve Merritt, born Roosevelt, who
was Mrs. Schuyler. The papers are
as inaccessible as if buried in the
Catacombs of Egypt.
The love story of Mrs. Elliott Zbor-
owski, cousin of John Jacob Aston, is
told in the sealed papers, and how she
ceased to bear the title of the Baroness
de Steurs. Equally interesting Sc
cret is the testimony in the case of
Mrs. Haig, daughter of Mrs. William
Aston, divorced from Coleman Dray-
ton. The ramifications in the Drayton
divorce action are many, and are only
known to those intimately acquainted
with the circumstances. Mrs. Blood
good, daughter of Mrs. Ann S. Stevens,
who ceased to be Mrs. William Have
meyer, furnished no public information
in her action.
The most famous case which will
come under the eyes of the census bu-
reau examiners, and about which the
greatest secrecy has been maintained,
is the o. H. P. Belmont divorce. So
ciety yawned when 1t became known
that Mr.. Belmont's beautiful wife
now Mrs. George Rivers-was free and
there ives not much of flutter when
Mr.. Belmont married Mrs. w. X. Van
derbilt, who had obtained divorce
from Louis Rutherford. But not one
line of this tangle became public. The
testimony, of course. was taken in each
action to comply with the law, but
the papers were sealed.
Mrs. w. e. d. Stokes. who was Miss
Acosta, noted for her dark Portuguese
beauty and symmetry of figure, was
the wife Of Captain Phil Lydig. In
her case society was eager to hear
particulars, but not one syllable leak
ed out. and the same is true of Mrs.