Fitzgerald leader enterprise and press. (Fitzgerald, Ben Hill County, Ga.) 1921-1964, 1925-05-07
New Jersey Judge Uses
Auto Cure For Divorces
"Cars and Riddles the Way to Untan-
gle Crossed Matrimonial Wires"
Says Famous Jurist Who Has APP
piled Remedy.
Written Especially for The Leader
By DIRK De YOUNG
Through Autocaster Service

Through Autocaster Service
Cars and kiddies," says Judge
Martin G. Ashley, of Woodbridge, N.
J., is the remedy for divorce. The
auto is for airing and the children for
common interest
/ "Pile the family in an automobile
and hike them over the country,
where they can get Whit of nature
and the cause of marital wrangling is
removed" this elderly judge asserts.
"The stuffy air of apartment houses
the uneventfulness of being penned
in the home with nothing but the four
walls of house to look at, make peo-
pie irritable and quarrelsome. Nature
never meant that man should live in
that way. Get the family back to ma
ture and family troubles will disap-
pear"
That is what Judge Ashley preach
es inn his 57th year, practicing what
he breaches as nearly as he can.
Has Handed Down $4,000 Decisions
In the fifteen years that Martin G.
Ashley has held down the job as
Judge at Woodbridge, he has handed
down more than $4,000 judicial deci-
sions, many of them regarding marital
difficulties, and in all that time not
one of his dictums has ever been re-
versed by a higher court.
The Judge is a bachelor. Yet he
has the difficult role of settling hun
dreds of disputes between husband
and wife and between parents and
children. Hayward boys, who &c
wrong simply because of their pent-
I'D lives in circumscribed home sur
roudings, out more for lark than for
Intentional wrong doing, come before
him daily. He always says they could
be corrected better by Climbing into
the automobile with their parents and
getting adventure in the country than
by stern rebukes from a judge.
A large number of people go be-
fore Judge Ashley every year, expect
ing him to start the ball rolling for a
divorce, but, with the wisdom of Sol
ONION, he generally patches up these
Misunderstanding and advises, the
quarrelling pair to get an automobile
and seek happiness together in the
haunts of nature.
Judge Ashley has old-fashioned
ideas about marriage He thinks that
when the matrimonial wires of hus-
band and wife become tangled, they
should ge Strengthened out, not cut.
He does not believe in divorce, except
as last resort. Patching up these lit
tie differences between misunderstood
ing couples, therefore, has become
quite a speciality with him.
AS a result, divorce is a rare phe-
nomenon in his jurisdiction. His aut-
omobile philosophy has undoubtedly
worked well.
Time Investigate Is Before Marriage
This Judge is also authorized to
marry people. Although he does not
have rush of business with Cupid's
victims, he does some splicing up oc-
casional1y. He is very particular about
the lob of making one out of two peo-
Die, also. In other words those who
come before him to be ''hooked-up"
are obliged to show a clean bill OF
health first in the way of previous
marriage alliances. He adheres to the
principle that marriage lis very SOL
emn thing, and that two people so
joined together should not lightly rent
asunder.
When the marriage yoke begins to
rub the fur the wrong way, it is ire
quently caused by bad air and the
monotony of the four walls in the
average home, says the Judge, and
that is when he prescribes the auto
mobile cure.