The Washington times., 1922-04-27

to the world and that they are
not intended for native-born Vir-
ginians exclusively provided the
statutes of the State were complied
with.
1--WE recommend that the present
law of domicile and residence be
changed so that actual physical
and continuous residence be re-
quired for 365 days and nights be-
fore one one can acquire domicile
and residence and that the period
required before any divorce suit
can be matured after filing be at
least one year.
No mention is made Of the grand
jury's report of the testimony of
Mrs. Mary l.. Baggett. Develop
ments today proved that Mrs. Bag
gett was not called to testify against
Little Reno's divorce judge and the
ring, of which she played a leading
part.
The records showed that she made
hundreds of affidavits for members
of the ring, including affidavits for
Judge Moncure, prior to his ascen-
sion to the bench.
The truth or falsely of these affi-
davits may be approximated by the
true, an average Of more than 100
persons would have had to have
lived in her nine-room house, con-
tanning six bedrooms, at the same
time.
Dissenting Jurors Report.
The dissenting report of Juror S.
w. Pitts declared that this condi-
tion was too much to accept as
true, but was overruled by the
other eight jurors. Juror Pitts.
report follows:
The deplorable condition I'm our
community was brought to our az
tention by a series of articles pub
lished in The Washington Times, and
in my opinion the motive Cf this
publication in bringing the situation
to our attention has no bearing what
ever on the case. The fact remains
that the evil is here, and the fact
that The Washington Times com
mercialized the proposition is OF no
interest to me in arriving at my con-
clusions.
II have also ignored all OF the
charges of one Frank Stuart
against the court except that part
of his charges which refers to the
divorce evil and am willing TO ad-
NIT that the evidence shows EN-
phatically that there was no cor
ruption connected with the court
or any of the attorneys practicing
before this court, and am con
WINGED OF the integrity of the judge
of this court beyond every possible
doubt
Refused to Face Grand Jury.
"It appears that there existed
certain number of professional wit
nesses as to domicile, and all of these
witnesses were examined by the
grand jury with the exception of
Mrs. Mary l.. Baggett, who refused
to appear before the jury by advice
of counsel.
1T is rather significant that this
witness should refuse to appear. a5
this witness testified in such large
number of cases, and, according to
her sworn statement, she had living
at her home house 12O people AT tho
same time in a ten-room house. This
was, of course, absurd and unreason
able and could not have been posi-
BILE.
II further believe that by reason
of the publicity and the fact that
the evil has been so forcibly brought
to the attention of the court and
the bar of the city that the evil
has already been remedied and
that with due diligence on the part
of the court and the bar that our
laws are sufficient to correct the
evil; as evidence of this fact ! call
attention of the court to the small
number of divorce cases entered
since the publicity has been started