Show OVER THE OCEAN 111 Facts in Reference to the Divorce Laws of France An Ancient Swiss Custom and How It Worked England France China and Their Troubles I O With a Number of Parisian Points and Paragraphs Special correspondence of THE llELD PARIS JUNE 4xn 1884 I Divorce is almost as old an institution institu-tion as marriage observes Voltaire j who was an old bachelor he adds I believe that marriage is few weeks more ancient that is to say one quarrels with his wife at the end of fifteen days one beats her 1 at the end cf a mouth and one separates from her alter six weeks of cohabitation In France CHRIETIANS WILL BE INDEBTED TO A JEW LI Itfaquet for carrying the repeal ol the divorce law this ought to soften the heart even of the editor of the autiSeaaetio journal which weakly denounces Rothschild similar and mighty men of Israel The Senate ha by an overwhelming overwhelm-ing majority voted the principle of divorce It only remains now to word the clauses to define tbe conditions con-ditions of relief Married people will now have a 1 chance of rermrrying according to their likings for no act of Parliament was ever yet framed but was locee enough to allow a coach and six to gallop through The French ideaa about divorce oscillate between the dictum of Milton tin is not God who bhs prohibited divorce but the priest and of La Harpe Divorce ought to be accorded for incompatibility of humor and he carried that principle into law the 29th of March 1793 In ancient Rome under tbe republic divorce became more frequent with the decadence de-cadence of manners But Csftjar Ootavius Antony and others contracted con-tracted marriage even three four and five times Indeed matters were EO bad in Rome that it wag con eidered an honor during her life time for a woman to have but one husband hus-band A model eptaph on the grave of a Roman matron set forth her life was pious and exemplary and that she had only one husband Juvenal tells us how a lady could change her husband eight times in five years and 8c Jerome relates the spectacle could ba witnessed at Rome of a woman who died HAVING HAD 22 HDEBANDS The good Father might have added her last bridegroom was a man who had been divorced 21 times the state paid the expenses of this curious marriage and when the woman died she wag decreed a public funeral The conquest of Gaul by the Roman introduced the institution of divorce Basine quitted the King of Thurnga for Chilperio who married her A Chilperio King of Soissons divorced his wife Andovere because she so far fo got court etiquette as to present herself and baby at the baptismal bap-tismal font to be christened And Charlemagne divorced his wife Theodore Theo-dore because she was not a Christian In Russia when a husband and wife cannot get on together they take a napkin each holding an end and having broken a cake in too proceed ty a crossroads and therein presence of some people tear the napkin to tatters till the smallest morsel remains re-mains in the fingers incapable of further subdivision If after this mutual tearing process they are not reconciled each takes a different road and the tribunal pronounces the divorce A married couple named Fousceau Protestantonceat Roohelle divorced themselves and remarried The governor sent for them put them in the stocks for a few hours two meD hats were placed over the wifes bead and a distaff over the husbands Liberated they went home and lived happy ever afterwards In 1796 the working of La Harpes law was such that the divorces were on a par with the marriages Deputy Regnant complained before the council of five hundred that it was abominable a man could change his wife lke his coat and a wife her husband like her bonnet The law was made more Stringent but it played Old Harry with the right of succession to property Thus a young couple having arranged a divorce the husband married his exwifes grand aunt aged 82 and by the marriage settlement settle-ment thus secured her fortune The old lady soon died aged brides generally gen-erally do and after a few months the widower remarred his divorced wife The Swiss had AN ANCIENT CUSTOM to bar out divorces When a couple decided on a divorce they wero locked lock-ed up in a room > together the only furniture allowed was one chair a table and a bed The teteatete was limited to eight days At its expiration expira-tion they were reconciled Cynical people observed the effecaoy of tho plan consisted in a husband preferring prefer-ring to brave all rather than to be eo lookEd up with his wife for even a day Imagine Socrates and Xantippe thus imprisoned and the philosopher I Candle lectured into reformation The Lime is come when the Eng lish nation since ita government has abdicated must take a stand against the bullying programme of the French in Egypt and the floods of horrible abuse poured out upon Eng land by journals that forget decency facts fair play The kidglove the unctuous bland and Uriah Heep policy ot the foreign office is simply a subject of ridicule and laughter The multiple control is the triumph not only of France in Egypt but in the east It is better to force France to do all she can now than hereafter It would be well for England to keep ever before the eyes of the world that France in letting up as the champion of f European rights now in Egypt shamefully abandoned that role when Arabi threatened the Khedives existence ex-istence the monarch France and England set up and pledged them selve to sustain that the championship champion-ship in question is of the same ds interested oharaoer as displayed in Tunis and Tonkin France firat civilization civi-lization and all that sort of thing next And finally that England having gone into Egypt singlehand i ed EXPENDED HER BLOOD AND TREASURE has not the slightest idea of being dictated out of the land of the Nile jockeyed out of Cairo or bullied out of Alexandria The idea of conciliating French hate by soft soap temporlzatioua entente cordmles and similar rubbish is pure folly and of the most dangerous danger-ous kind The more England shows herself independent of France and respects her traditions of pluck and fearlessness the more Usa French will I heed hsr Germany is not browbeaten brow-beaten nor howled down by united royalists imperialists republicans and oommun ets that in their days cf misfortune found a repose in Eng land and certain in due course tc rtquire it again E4land lot hr self down and misled the French by her l gush for them by fUttpri their vanities fld feed y their foiblco She ought to have a tsJ towards them aa if men not a mosaic of a child and the woman treat them as I sho does other nations aa men I For the future the relations between be-tween France and England mU3t b I based on other lines France muat be shown rather than reminded that her friendship is not actually necessary neces-sary for the existence of England that her humors are misplaced ni it she adopts a pincushion war in I Egypt aba can in return be made uncomfortable in many parts of the world It is old tactics with France to indulge in hyperboles and superlatives superla-tives a3 to her grievances when she desires to cover her designs It maybe may-be compl mentary to Englishmen to observe they cause so much anxtetj to the French wheu they do nothing at all and to reflect what must be their potency if they became antagonists antago-nists A Frenchman eeea in those who differ from him not an adversary adver-sary but a personal enemy and those who have the weakness to believe there are other nations at least equal to France are actuated by motives of envy hatred malice uncharitable ness and above alljealousy I do not see why France arrogates to hers self that she and England ara the OIVILIZAING AGENTS OF THE WORLD Brother Jonathan has no time for abroad a-broad grin at such windbaggism Italy may lay claim to helping the good work as for Germany inquire Of Bismarck France wanta Africa from the Red Sea to the Atlantic this was Prevost Ptiradola daydream Englandthe nation not the government will not JlscuttlaJl from Egypt but she must be prepared to protest Gibraltar from the opposite side of the way as Morocco is doomed The French minister haa returned with his instructions in-structions to Tangiers The Senate committee has not formally made its report on tne recidivisms question ibut the draft recommends sending the choice SCUM OF PRISON FILTH to New Caledonia and Guyane Australia is now challenged will she I rely on the colonial office which has no backbone or on her own anti i cosmopolitan nuisance laws The chamber of deputies has voted the touchstone clauses of the army bill military active rvbe spending three years for all THUS theological students must unsheath the sword Perhaps the Senate may make exceptions ex-ceptions The revision of the constitution con-stitution bill which when proposed in 1882 by Gambetta was made the pretext to politically extinguish himis meeing with fierce opposition on the clause of tying down the congress in advance The bill is a perfect Pan doras boxmay hope be found at the bottom The French are of the opinion that Tonkin is a white elephant on their hands instead as expected finding there larks dropping down ready roasted from the skies some millions must be expended to open j up the outwork of their IndoChinese empire And where is the money to come from With all the reductions and cheeseparings the deficit of the budgetcannot be covered and stock exchange affairs are as flat as ditch water The protectionists who are gaining ground say that it is the foreigner who ought to be made to fill the exchequer As for the freetrad ers they have burned what they adored and adored what they burned by ADVOCATING PRIVILEGED TAXES on American Italian German and English importations to Tonkin Here KUohnerB maxim ought to be remembered First catoh your hare Until France can produce articles at least as cheap as oher nations she cannot compete with them and so long as Frenchmen rely on the government and noton their individual in-dividual selves to develops colonies they will never have colonies Undeveloped Unde-veloped territoriea garrisoned by ofS daIs do not constitute sources of wealth or strength The Bonapirtista still amuse the gallery Prince Victor and his Papa pa fend Via thats the screaming farce which we are asked to accept as serious politics Paul de Cassagnao has made a tremendous discovery nothing more nor leas than that Prince Victor has on his paperknife the motto Aut Qeiar ant nullua And to think the funds have neither risen nor fallen Tbe government is reported to be occupied with the organization of the Orleanista The select reception given so imprudently im-prudently by M Molten the Amen can minister where the Comte de Paris played at Knigship has put the authorities on the scent The Reverend Pere Lpyson requ9 ted t-ed the budget commission to change the heading of the Estimates in the chapter Catholic Religion to Catholic Religions he was informed inform-ed the commission wsre tied to that phrase by the concerdot but they had not the slightest intention of endowing endow-ing any new religion PARIS POINTS Visitors ought to noe thereal and imitation jewelry exhibition being hed in a wing of the Louvre many beautiful things are there The idea of an international exhibition in 1889 is officially broached Wonder Won-der if Germany will this time enter the lists wonder No2 will the English Eng-lish forget the newspaper punishment punish-ment etc they have so gratuitously received from France to make ine show possible In the sculpture section of the picture show Lucre aro thirtytwo busts and stiiuea oi celebratieo that France haa in due time to inaugurate not coucting the Gambsttas Minister Abbe Teiry was reproached reproach-ed tiat one of his schemes of taxation taxa-tion was akin to taking money out of peoples pockets U And from where ele do you expect me ID take ilJJ he said |