Running is, as free as thought,
Or like his fee.
[1]. Private enmity towards the prisoner.
A BRILLIANT FORENSIC EFFORT.
Having learned that a highly-educated and respectable lady of this city had instituted a suit in one of our courts for the purpose of obtaining a divorce from her husband, I stepped into the hall of justice to learn how the case progressed. The fact of a young wife demanding a separation in a country like this, which is proverbial for its separations, is nothing to be wondered at, and I was considerably surprised, on reaching the court room, to find it so full of people that I could hardly gain admittance. I was not so much astonished at the great rush, however, when informed by the bailiff that the ground on which the lady rested her case was that her husband snored. As I entered, the plaintiff’s lawyer commenced addressing the court. He entered into the case with the spirit and fire of a Clay or a Webster. After reviewing and commenting largely upon the testimony given in the case, he ended his argument in the following words:—
THE ADVOCATE.
“Now, sir, whatever other people may think of this application, I take a bold stand, regardless whose corns or bunions I tread upon, so long as I put my foot down where it belongs. We have too many snorers among us. They are in our places of amusement, introducing groans and thunder where none were intended in the play. We find them in our places of worship, breaking forth in the midst of the pastor’s prayer, or while he is picturing to the congregation the wreck of ages and the crash of worlds. I maintain that this application is a righteous one; that it is a shot in the right direction, which will in all likelihood eventually bring down the game; and were I a judge invested with power to decide a peculiar case of this kind, I would show no hesitation, but grant the plaintiff her natural and very reasonable request more readily than if the grounds on which she sued for a separation were drunkenness or desertion.
“The absurdity of an irascible wife seeking a divorce from a husband because he indulges too freely in the flowing bowl must be apparent to all. She rushes into the crowded court room, and, figuratively speaking, catches the astonished justice by the ear, as Joab in the extremity of his distress laid hold upon the horns of the altar, and requests him to sever the chafing bonds with his legal shears. Again: what a pitiable lack of discretion that woman exhibits who appeals to the court merely because her husband deserts her, leaving her to pursue the even tenor of her way. Why, in nine cases out of ten this is a ‘consummation devoutly to be wished;’ she is left untrammeled, and has no husband to support.