"Reads the in image act with pride
And fancies that the law is on his side,"
may soon be taught, to his dismay, that some backwood's court in the West has privately given his artful better-half a divorce, and authorized her to wed at her earlier pleasure with the Lothario whom he—the cast-off husband—had not even begun to suspect of treachery. Or, again the lord and master whose preference has wandered from his lawful wife to some designing female poacher on her rightful domain, may openly give that wife the fullest justification in law for a New York divorce, and, after the petition has been granted, go with his paramour to any State outside the jurisdiction of the State of New York, and there be legally joined to her for whom he has forsworn himself. One might infer from these dangerous and disgraceful possibilities that but few of the married ones who, from whatever cause, were discontented with their domestic relations, would be long restrained by any other than the highest exceptional moral considerations from availing themselves of the relief so variously attainable. It must be borne in mind, however, that an honorable action for divorce, openly and honestly undertaken in any State, involves more or less public exposure with considerable pecuniary outlay. These two considerations, in the present lax tendencies of our divorce laws, constitute the chief bar against a wholesome "popular" adoption of the legal remedy for domestic troubles; while their potency has invoked a class of fraudulent practitioners whose insidious business it is to procure dissolution of marriage for any or no cause, "without publicity," and at a cost suited to the most limited means. In other words, New York has been, and still is, the headquarters of a villainous divorce ring, by the audaciously fraudulent practices of which the solemn marital covenant is made a despised and brittle toy of the law—to be broken and discarded at the will of the vicious and depraved.
Lord Howell, for fifty years a judge of Doctor's Commons, pointedly said: "A knowledge that persons uniting in marriage must continue husbands and wives, often makes them good husbands and wives; for necessity is a powerful master to teach the duties it imposes."
These sinister traders in domestic infamy, secret libel, and suborned perjury announce their business and addresses in advertisements in which "success is guaranteed," "no fee required till divorce is granted," "no publicity," etc., while the decree is warranted to be "good in every State,"—in confirmation of which last assertion the divorce specialist's private circular frequently contains the following extract from Article IV, Section I, of the Constitution of the United States: "Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State."
The question may arise, and it is pertinent, who employ these divorce specialists? We answer: All sorts of people. They may be dissolute actresses, seeking a spurious appearance of law to end an old alliance, and to prepare for a new one. They may be frivolous, extravagant, reckless, misguided wives of poor clerks or hard-working mechanics, infatuatedly following out the first consequences of a matinee at the theatre, and a "personal" in the daily newspaper. They may be the worthless husbands of unsuspecting faithful wives, who, by sickness, or some other unwitting provocation, have turned the unstable husband's mind to dreams of new connubial pastures and the advertising divorcist. They may be the "lovers" of married women, who come to engage fabricated testimony and surreptitious unmarriage for the frail creatures whose virtue is still too cowardly to dare the more honest sin. They are not the wronged partners of marriage, who, by the mysterious chastising providence of outraged hearts and homes are compelled, in bitterest agony of soul to invoke justice of the law for the honor based upon right and religion. The manufacture of a case of the contrabandists of divorce is often such a marvel of unscrupulous audacity, that its very lawlessness constitutes in itself a kind of legal security.
Another question naturally arises: What are such divorces worth? We reply that the whole business is unblushing fraud upon the dupes who are entrapped into patronizing the business. Not one of those divorces has ever yet held good when ultimately contested in open court, by the parties against whom they have been secretly obtained. Many of them, however—perhaps thousands!—have served the whole purpose of those purchasing them, because the husbands or wives so cruelly wronged have either lacked the means, or the heart to take public legal measures for exposing the fraud, and setting the divorce aside. How is the poor clerk, or mechanic, the invalid or unfriended wife, to raise hundreds, perhaps thousands, of dollars necessary for such a purpose?
It seldom happens that the so-called divorce specialist applies to any of the courts in the States of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Maryland or South Carolina, because in those States the testimony given in divorce proceedings becomes part and parcel of the written court record. The names, residences, and occupations of the witnesses, and all the testimony they offer, is carefully taken down by the referee, and reported upon by him to the court. The judge takes all the papers, and grants the decree or refuses it, upon the report and the testimony, and the record is perpetually on file, and accessible. Consequently when a husband or wife unexpectedly finds that their hymeneal bonds are severed, they have the right and privilege of inspecting the record of the case, in the court archives, and of examining the evidence upon which the decree adverse to them was granted. These are what is termed "dangerous States," in the parlance of the specialists; for there is always a chance of the disbanded mate feeling aggrieved and pugnacious, and of the cat coming with portly stare from the bag with a lively prospect of the perjured witnesses and the specialist having to "scoot" for parts unknown, or run the risk of dignifying the inside of the State prison. Many readers of this page will no doubt remember with what precipitation the notorious Monro Adams made himself "scarce" in January, 1882, upon the discovery of the irregular Chase divorce, and others of the same kind fraudulently procured in Brooklyn.
In the Western and Southwestern States, on the other hand, where the population is sparser, and where no such press of business is before the courts, divorce proceedings are mostly under the immediate control of the court itself. The presiding judge hears the testimony as it is presented, and decides the case on its merits, there and then. There is no necessity for employing a referee, and there are no written records of the case. The decision, the date, and the abstract records appear on the court books, and that is all. And yet, by the section of the Constitution, already quoted, this decree is regarded,—by the court that grants it, at least,—as perfectly legal and operative all over the Union. Although this is not the case, there are almost insuperable obstacles to such a divorce being set aside. For there are no names of witnesses and no records. There is the name of the lawyer; but if a "muss is raised." he is either non est inventus, or his memory is paralyzed. He has no recollection of the names of the witnesses, of the date of the hearing, or indeed of the case. No matter what evidence the injured party might be able to produce, he cannot get an iota of satisfaction nor make the least progress until he knows what evidence was presented against him when the decree was granted. Daniel McFarland found this in Indiana, and so have scores of others. These Western and Southwestern States are therefore not unadvisedly deemed "safe," and hence they are very largely patronized.
In Iowa, Indiana, and Rhode Island, again, the court possesses what is termed "discretionary power" in divorce cases. The State Constitution, after specifying the usual prime ground—adultery—goes on to specify: "And for any other cause for which the court shall deem it proper that a divorce should be granted," or "when it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court that the parties can no longer live harmoniously together." It requires no elaborate reasoning to perceive that a decree granted under such conditions remains tolerably secure. For the testimony has been taken vive voce, and the decree pronounced in open court, after the judge has been "satisfied" that the complainant "can no longer live harmoniously" with her Johnny or his Jenny.
A case illustrating this point came under our notice some years ago. A wealthy young Frenchman eloped from Bordeaux with the girl-wife of a middle-aged wine exporter. The runaways came to New York, and in a short time, through a specialist, the lady obtained, in an Iowa court, a divorce from her deserted husband. The deferred rite of matrimony was then solemnized between the pair.