Year: 1879

A beyy of girls, none of them seem
ingly more than 20 years old, filed up
the hill that leads TO the country court
house this morning, and passed into the
old gray stone building Almost all OF
them were accompanied by elderly wo-
men, although one or two were with
sprucely dressed young men. The ven
erable Judge Otis Lord of Salem took
his seat upon the bench and called the
first case on the docket for the term OF
the supreme court. There stepped for
ward blue-eyed girl, whose light brown
hair fell upon her back in heavy braid,
the ends of which were concealed in
blue loye-knot. An elderly woman
stood on one side of her ard a young
man with flowing beard on the other.
Then the girl told her story. She want
ed a divorce from her husband. Judge
Lord looked at her critically for an in
slant as though astonished; not so much
that a pretty girl, who dressed and
looked as though she had run into court
from school, should want divorce as
that she should have already been mar
ried. But she said she had been mar
ried four years, and that her husband
had left her after living with her few
weeks. She admitted that the husband
was living in the country, but urged,
with a pretty tremulousness, that he
would not live with her. Her mother
and the young man with the beard COZ
roborated her story, and she went out
of the court smiling and congratulated
by several of the other girls and by two
or three young men.


Another case was called. There
stepped to the stand slender, gray
eyed girl. She seemed to be less than
Is years old. Her feeble, tottering
mother was with her. Yet she had been
married, she said, five years, aud her
husband would not support her after
the first three months of her welded
life. The husband, fleShy young man,
stood up in court and admitted it. Judge
Lord irowned and nestled in his seat.
But he simply said, 81 will consider the
matter"


a plump, rosy checked woman, with
a literary appearance that may have
been caused 10y the eye glasses she wore,
stepped up next. Her husband was a
sea. captain, who had promised TO take
her to sea but when he got as far as
Boston with her he left her at hotel.


"Wcll, why did he leave you2"


81 suppose he loved another woman
better"


This sea captain had lived with the
girl few months, ard although he has
often been in the town since he left her,
yet he had refused TO have anything to
do with her tor three years. The young
woman got the decree she desired, and
a clerical looking man escorted her from
court.


Next came psle-faced girl, whose
features were regular, but whose com
plexion was salowed. She seemed sick
ly. She was married in 1874, and after
a week of honeymoon her husband left
her with the remark that no wanted
nothing more TO do with her.


"Did yon go to him?


"No sir."


"Why not ?"


"Because his mother was always
picking at me and finding fault"


Then Judge Lord, who had been Wis
IDLY growing indignant, arose. at is
shocking to contemplate the state OF
morals in this great common wealth that
is here to be observed. Has it come TO
this / am here to administer the law
as it stands. The law says that deser
ton for three years is cause for divorce.
But see clearly how it operates. A
young man and woman agree to get
married. They feel that they'll live to
gether so long as they find it mutually
pleasant and agreeable SO to do and
then, by a sort of tacit understanding,
they can live separate, and then one or
the other at the end of three years
brings in libel for divorce for desertion.
The other party makes no opposition.
The decree is granted, and they are at
liberty to go on and do the same thing
over and over again. / say ut is terri
BILE to contemplate such state of NOR
ais in this commonwealth. Go on"


A dark-eyed brunette stepped to the
stand and wanted divorce because she
had been obliged to leave her husband,
as he had used harsh language 10 her.
With the brunette were an aunt and
fine-looking young man from Boston.
The young wife wore fashionably-
made garment, and over her wedding
ring was another,in whose setting dia.
mond glstened. Her jaunty hat was
draped with long black ostrich feath-
er. She looked pleadingly at the vener
able judge from beneath her long, shad-
owy eye-lashes. But after listening to
her story Judge Lord again arose.


81 must say that it is terrible TO con-
template such a state of society. Why
and here he turned to the lawyers
who were in the bar-"why, out of all
the large number Of divorce cases before
me recently, there were only two of the
persons married before 1870. Does not
this show that young people are enter
ing into this solemn contract with the
most trivial ideas of its importance, and
with the feeling that they can be freed
from the bonds whenever they likei /
am not responsible for the laws as they
stand. can only administer them. But
| will say that, SO far as can prevent
it, they shall not be used to facilitate the
developement of such state of morals"


The supreme court was i'm session 10