The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-06-07
PLAIN TALE OF
 LAW STUDENT Gets In Quandary and Talks to
 Stenographer MATRIMONY COMPLICATED Simple Little Case That Involved one William and Certain Mary.
 She Has Two Legal
 Husbands.
MATRIMONY COMPLICATED
From the Boston Herald.

From the Boston Herald
 The law student was in a quandary The office boy and the janitor. upon whom he usually lavished the rapidly in- creasing wealth of his legal knowledge, were absent, and case which he had just read made it necessary for him to have an audience of some sort
 The boss was in his private office. but he was busy, and, furthermore on the very few occasions when the student had endeavored in his presence to comment on cases which had no bearing on any actual business in the office he had shown lack of interest, to put it mildly, that served to discourage further effort
 The stenographer2 was at her desk working with an energy which threatened every moment to make two letters occupy the same place at the same time. The law students experience with steno- graphers was limited, and his knowledge of the sex to which they belong had been derived chiefly from reports of divorces and breach of promise cases, which made 1t seem as if the activities of women were about equally divided between at tempts to make some men pay for marry ing them and efforts to make others pay for failing to do so.
 There was no one else available and he must either talk to her or hold his peace, so he concluded to choose the less of the two evils, for after all he was only an unsophisticated law student He waited until there was momentary pause in the chatter of the machine while she supplied it with a fresh sheet of paper and then he walked over to her desk with a copy of a law supplement in his hand
 T suppose you were never mar ried, were you, Miss Stenographer?" said the student opening the book as though he had 8 mind to examine her as to it's contents.
 ''Why, how you startled me, MT. Student exclaimed the stenographer and to prove it she ran the paper in so crooked that 1t would have clogged the machine before 1t was half through. Married? l should say not. Whatever put shuch a notion as that into your head?"
 "Oh, I had no idea that you were mar ried as yet. In fact, remember to hay ing classified you in my mind as still being able to bring a breach of prom ise suit and for that reason I thought you would be interested In recent New York case that I have been reading"
 The stenoErapher looked at him a mo- ment as though she found more difficulty in classifying him than he did in getting her properly tabled.
 "Well, for a man that's hardly spoken to me before you certainly show nerve enough for a sanatorium full of nervous prostrationers. If you don't make a sue cess of the law I would recommend that you open sanatorium,'' and the stem ographer's eyes snapped as she applied herself energetically to the crooked pa per.
 | This retort momentarily sidetracked the | students train of thought He had heard l of a stenographer who was so reticent | that nothing short of the third degree l would make her confess that it was a fine 1 day, and he thought what a pleasure it would be to give her points on fine cases This one was radically different and but for the necessity of telling somebody of the case in hand he would have gone back to the study of law and let it's expo sition await an audience less inclined to criticise the expositor
 "Of course l didn't mean that you in your actual person had an actual cause of action for breach of promise. I can't imagine a man with such exceedingly bad taste as to furnish you with the proper grounds; that 1t to say,'' the stu dent hastened to explain, for he felt that wrong construction of that remark might start something coming his way again. T can't think that any man who had the fortitude deliberately to marry
 
 had all been expended in making the con- tract. and that he had none left for the execution thereof"
 The stenographer didn't appear to be thoroughly placated, but she said nothns and the student thought the time favora- ble for getting his train of thought back on the main track.
 "As a possible candidate for matrimo- nial honors, duties, burdens, emoluments, hereditaments and appurtenances, I think you will be interested in so much of the history of the Stokeses, William and Mary as is related in this supplement- It seems that away back in 1875 Mary mar ried John Hitching. It took just % years eight months and three days for John to accumulate store of matrimonial ennui so large as to be uncomfortable, and at the end of that period he gave a base imita- tion of Longfellow's Arab and silently stole away"
 Just like man. commented the sten-' cgrapher.
 ''Yes, I suppose it would be impossible for woman to steal silently away. How ever, specuations of that kind are aside from the main issue. Mary after Johns deserton stood for eight years, two months and 9 days without hitching. and then she became harnessed to one William Stokes"
 "Why she committed bigamy or polyga-
 
 queried the stenographer
 Tt was something like that" replied the student, "but it was saved from being the real article by section three of the domes- tic relations law, a matrimonial statute of limitations which provides that a mar riage of person whose husband or wife has deserted her or him for five success sive years immediately prior to the mar riage and who isn't known by the desert ed spouse to be alive. shall be void only from the time its nullity shall be declared by a court of competent jurisdiction
 After William and Mary had lived to- Eether for three months rumors began to circulate that the late lamented John wasn't a late lamented at all but had just sneaked around the corner instead of doing the fade away act to the limit, as all concerned had hoped William in response to a query by the twice mar ried Mary, assured her that if she be- haved herself he would stand by her, which he did for two years and then brought suit 10 have his marriage an nulled".
 Poor Mary said the stenographer r'And yet I suppose 1t is better to have loved and lost, even if you lost 1t in a divorce court, than never to have loved at all.'
 "very likely that's true" replied the student, 'but if it is Mary will have to take your word for it, for the court didn't deprive her of either of her husbands The situation is somewhat peculiar, even for a matrimonial situation.
 You see Johns status as a husband by five years of desertion and the subsequent marriage of Mary and William was put into a comatose condtion--a case of sus-