[733] Rev. Stat. and Codes of Porto Rico (1902), 532, 533: penalty, not less than five years in the penitentiary.
[734] Penal Laws of Hawaiian Islands (1897), 73.
[735] "When the question is asked, 'What is the best divorce law?' the only answer can be, 'There is no good divorce law.' There are some faults in human nature which always have existed and apparently always will exist; and there is no satisfactory method of dealing with them."—Bryce, Studies in Hist. and Jurisprudence, 853. This assertion would apply equally well to the whole body of laws dealing with questions arising in human conduct or social relations. It is misleading, and instead of helping to a solution tends to befog the issue.
[736] See the Reports of the league and the numerous papers of Mr. Dike mentioned in the fourth division of the "Bibliographical Index."
[737] The evils which may result from conflicts of this kind in the divorce laws are discussed in a lively way by Richberg, Incongruity of the Divorce Laws, 69, 70. But the California act of 1903, if constitutional, may check the abuse: see pp. 150, 151, above.
[738] See Realf, "The Sioux Falls Divorce Colony and Some Noted Colonists," Arena, IV, Nov., 1891, 696-703, and compare the remarks of Dike, in Rep. of Nat. Div. Ref. League (1891), 12, who has taken pains to correct the exaggerated accounts of the newspapers; those of Hare, Marriage and Divorce, 16 ff.; and see the articles of A. R. Kimball and R. Ogden mentioned in Part IV of the Bibliographical Index.
[739] Extract from an address delivered by Hon. Carroll D. Wright before the fourteenth National Conference of the Unitarian Society, Saratoga, N. Y., 1891: in Arena, V, 143; printed entire in the Christian Register, Oct. 8, 1891; based on the statistics collected in his Report, 193-206. Commenting on the passage quoted the editor of the Arena says (142):
"Another charge made against our divorce laws is that, not being uniform, certain states are being overrun with persons of loose moral character, who seek release from marriage ties. Those who make this charge seem to overlook the fact that persons of loose moral character would not be liable to go to the trouble of leaving their home and state in order to gratify guilty passions. But those who find the marriage tie too galling for endurance and yet who wish to be law-abiding citizens presumably, will take advantage of liberal, enlightened, and humane laws, framed with a view to increase the happiness of the people rather than made in such a way as to foster immorality and enforced prostitution."
[740] According to the method of determining the amount of interstate migration for the purpose of securing divorce suggested by Willcox, "A Study in Vital Statistics," Pol. Sci. Quart., VIII, 90-92.
[741] Dike, "Statistics of Marriage and Divorce," Pol. Sci. Quart., IV, 608-12.