Los Angeles herald., 1907-04-22
CENSUS BUREAU ON DIVORCE
FROM the New York Times.

! York Times.
| in the rural sections, and as a natural
consequence the conditions for divorce
have multiplied. These seem contra
dictory explanations, and It is we'll TO
wait until all the facts have been re-
ported and analysed before assuming
to impute a cause for what seems to be
a most perilous fact to the welfare Of
| the nation.
These are the special phases of the
divorce evil tentatively foreshadowed
In the present census of divorce. As
nearly as may be computed, the broad
fact appears that there has been an in
crease of the tendency to divorce in the
whole country which amounts to nearly
10 per cent. The Wright census found
that there had been in the twenty
years preceding 1887 in the whole coun-
try 32S,716 divorces, or 33 In every 100,-
900 Of population. The estimate now is
that the number has gone up to 20 for
the twenty years following 1885. 1t is
computed that the total number Of
applications will be shown to be 1,400, =
900 for the whole country In twenty
years.
Wives Generally complanants
In the majority of cases divorces are
sought on the complaint of the wife.
The percentage is nearly 66 where de-
crees are granted to the wife. Cruelty,
desertion and drink are the main
causes assigned in the complaints filed,
and they run in the following proper
tions: Cruelty, to /; desertion, 11s to
1; drunkenness, 81A to 1. Desertion
furnishes ground for divorce, ostensibly
at least--for 1t Is often charged in a
complaint where the real offense is far
more grievous-in 3S per cent of cases.
Drunkenness is a cause in 4 per cent of
all cases. In nearly II per cent of all
cases the cause shown is infidelity, and
In this class 65 per cent of the DEGREES
granted are where the complainant is
the husband. SO far as indicated by
the returns received these interesting
features of the inquiry continue the
same in the present census.
In this as in the last census of di-
vorces the agents are instructed to re-
port special features of interest in the
cases that come under their notice.
Remarks on such matters are written
on the back of the schedule, and are
in some instances what might be called
mighty interestin' readin'." In one
case a divorce was granted because a
wife had two teeth pulled and thereby
enraged her husband. Sleeping with a
razor under his pillow brought a di-
vorce to one mans hearthstone. Fail
ure to battle frequently enough was as
signed as a cause in another case.
Keeping a saloon served as ground in
one case. A ranchman out west Of
Tended his wife by commanding her to
"down and charge" when he came in
from his hunting trips, just as he would
order his pointers to do; that wife got
her decree.
One wife tells how her spouse did
not like her way of driving nails and
lassooed her and stuck straws into
her ears to "see If she was Dutch"
She got her divorce. The man who
to scare his wife threatened to COM
NIT suicide and drank a bottle Of pare
goric in her presence furnished her
sufficient ground for her divorce An
other fellow who made his wife black
his shoes now does it for himself. One
wife got divorce by showing that her
husband made her drink whisky
poured 1t down her throat. Tobacco,
in one instance where 1t made the
wife sick to smell it, sufficed. Want
Of repairs to the house and no water
supply. was taken by one Judge as
ground for a decree. The high water
mark of cruelty in one case was the
fact that the husband never took his
wife out riding. In another the man
of the house cut off his wifes bangs
by force and she got for that her sepa-
ration.
Pathetic Case
Perhaps the most pathetic case is
that where a wife swears that she en-
dured all manner of privations and
poverty for her husbands sake, but
decided to get a divorce when he threw
her little dog into the stove and kept
1t there until it burned to death. One
wife says she must have a divorce be-
cause her husband "pinched her nose
until it was fiery red" Another sought
release from wedlock because her hus-
band never let her or the children go
to church. The man who proved by
witnesses that his wife never mended
his clothes, and that there had been
for months only one button on his vest,
got his divorce. So, too, did the fellow
who swore that his good woman pulled
him out of bed by his whiskers.
The returns are full of mention of
carving knives, fisticuffs, bootjacks,
flrewood, axes hatchets, flatirons, knit
ting needles, teapots, bottles crockery,
red hot pokers and similar domestic
articles of use or torture, as the case
may be. One man says his wife ran a
knitting needle four inches into his
arm. One woman struck her husband
violent blow with her steel hustle.
Failure to cook meals and make clothes
ofen appears. In one case the story is
told of rich girl who hated her guar
dian and went to a hospital for the
purpose of marrying a dying man,
thinking that as a widow she would
have freedom and be able to control
her estate. The man she married was
apparently at the point of death, but
he lived and turned out to be not only
cruel, but an escaped jailbird. She got
divorce. In another return note is
made of the fact that tied up with
the papers in the case as one of the
exhibits is bunch of hair which a
husband swore his wife pulled out of
his head in one of her RACES FIRE.
quently the statement is made that
the application for divorce was made
the next day after marriage.