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Show in silence. But her opposite does nothing noth-ing of the sort, and it is a curious fact that punitive damages for broken vows are generally sought by mature women from men pa.-t the prime of life. The saying, "There is no fool like an old fool," has special application to several defendants in recent suits, who need n.jt be specified by name, because their troubles have bueu fully exploited and are still fresh in the public memory. Their experience, nevertheless, may lie summarized as fallows: Met a pretty woman; didn't know her antecedents and didn't caro about 'em; made love with no particular object in view; .wrote some silly letters; was sounded as to honorable intentions; hesitated hesi-tated to reply and consulted with friends; was called an old fool and told to "shake her;" tried to, but couldn't; proposed under duress; got up a quarrel to break the engagement; painful parting, part-ing, followed by legal summons; lovely complainant tells her story to a tearful! and sympathetic jury; whacking verdict 1 mmj love. A Slight Probability that Thoy Will Cease to be Exposed to the lJla Hannters of the Courts. CASES OF IMMEDIATE INTEREST Movemen'i on Foot in America, England Eng-land and Germany to Abolish Actions Ac-tions for Breach of Promise. flirtatious bachelors of wealth nnd i susceptibility will be glad to learn of ! the probability that isoon such a thing as J an action for breach of promise of mar-! riagcwill be a thing of the past. The: parliament of Crre.it Britain is at present I considering a bill having for its object ! the abolition of all laws bearing on the subject, tho immediate cause of a de- ' l! , I j in her favor; curtain, I Nearly always there is an element or j comedy about a breach of promise case. When Senator Koot, of Lyons, Mich., i was hauled before a' court by Widow j Roberts, the plaintiff testified that after j the defendant had kissed her and offered marriage she gave him, us a pledge of I affection, a pair of white "pants" for-j for-j merly worn by her deceased husband, , For some reason the jury failed to bo af- fected by this touching bit of intelli-I intelli-I gence and returned the verdict, "No j cause of action." I Volney W. Mason, of Johnstown, R. i I., didn't get off so easily, however, i Clara GotT, aged yo, proved that he had ! written to her as "Clara dear," and Stlb-! Stlb-! scribed himself, "With love aud luauy fw THE LADY CONSENTS TO WED. nand for such legislation lieing the tremendous tre-mendous damages assessed on an old gentleman named Leslie Fraser Duncan. This ancient swain some time ago "ensnared" "en-snared" the affections of a confiding young woman and then refused to make her his wife. At least that is the conclusion con-clusion arrived at by a jury of virtuous British householders, who mulcted the defendant, when the case came before them, to the tune of 10,000. Now Duncan Dun-can didn't possess that sum, but the plaintiff's lawyers "jumped on him for all he was worth." j TELLING HKR STORY TO A JTUY. ' kisses, your own Volney." He had also j "kissed her dear picture good night," ' written poetry and bought a wedding i ring. The subsequent neglect to secure a license aud a minister cost Mr. Mason i $4,000. Henry C. Fry, a bank president of Rochester, Pa., when brought to book i by the dashing widow Hibbard some j time ago, gave very lively testimony in ' his own behalf. In response to a que- tion he said: No, sir. I never kl.ved her In my life, nor dlil I ever say she was the first liuiy I evor I kissed on a train. After Nov. 2 sho wrote me a letter demanding that I call upon her, and which referred in strong terms to my alleged unmanly conduct toward her. 1 went at one to her store. Mrs. Jlilihard invited me Into her parlor. 1 then demanded to know what she meant by writing such a letter. Khe replied that I had been courting hiir for two years and hiui promised to marry her. I replied: "I no J see you in your true character, that of a wan- ton adventuress. When you say 1 promised U I marry you yon tell what you know to be an un-mitigated un-mitigated lid." i They got out formidable papers, they searched every hole and corner for assets, as-sets, they put the simile heart breaker behind tho bars of a jail, and finally they obtained a total of 0,500. Satisfied Satis-fied that this was the extent of the old man's property, they set him free and divided the proceeds between themselves them-selves and their client. According to the law of the land, openly and above board, and in pursuance of strictly legitimate legit-imate methods Duncan has been made a pauper, and now, when nearly threescore-and-teti, becomes an object of charity. If he is in luck Ire will end his days at a workhouse. If he isn't ho can jump off London bridge or die of starvation. It is from England that Germany and the United States have borrowed this sort of legislation. These are the only countries of tho world where feelings wounded in the matrimonial regard can be salved with thumping financial emollients. emol-lients. Each now contemplates a modification modi-fication or abolition of existing statutes, and as Great Britain took the initiative in establishing breach of promise precedents, prece-dents, it is extremely proper that from that country should emanate an attempt Here are a few opinions of well known people regarding the proposed changes in tho statutes. Col. Thomas Ochiltree declares that ; "as the law stands it is hard on the man, and if the woman who brings suit is at all pretty it is worse." Zelie de Lussan thinks that "for a man to bring a suit for breach of promise is ridiculous, ridicu-lous, and for a woman to do it is scan-! scan-! dalous." Another tar of the stage says ; that "a woman must almost unsex her- self to go into court and have all her finer feelings exposed to the public gaze. "V'et it gives her a chance, and that is something a woman never gets without fighting for it." A former assistant sec- retary of the treasury, who is a bache-; bache-; lor, asserts that "juries as a rule are i made up of married mon, and they look on ns single fellows aa not doing our I duty, and give it to us as hard aa the law will let them." rij i f THEY CARREL AND PART. to do justice to men without working unfairness to women. The procedures now in vogue are declared by eminent English authorities to have degenerated into "instruments of extortion," and au American writer asserts that under existing ex-isting conditions "actions for breach of promise are instituted for one or two 1 purposes. The object of the plaintiff is either to obtain money or to exact marriage. mar-riage. Both are equally indefensible. ; For whereas the former savors of black- mail, the latter, with its attempt to HENRY C. FRY MRS. HIBBARD. I Meanwhile the merry war for damages dam-ages goes on, ns witness the appended paragraph from a recent issue of a Loudon Lou-don paper: 1 We learn on the best authority that apetitioa 1 has beta filed in the divorce division of her majesty's Lficli court of Justice by the youiuf wife of a nobleman, praying for a judicial Reparation Rep-aration from her husband on the ground of hiB alleged cruelty, which cruelty is denied. There are, of course, tlio usual number of actions for breach of promise of marriage down fur hearing it the course of the next three months. FliED C. DAYTON. mane two people love one another by legal action, is absurd." Tho first, luckless wight to suffer as a violator of courtship vows, wooed and ran uway when Charles the First held sway. He retired from the lists of Cupid , so the record has it, because of a "ter-rifick "ter-rifick drubbing" administered by a rival but disappointed suitor. The lady in the case, however, insisted on standing to her bargain, and invoked the "kynge's justice" against her terrified fiance. He failed to appear when the case was called, probably dreading a second encounter en-counter with his stalwart opponent for , the maiden's hand, and the fair plaintiff j 'twas at York the suit got hearing se- cured judgment for "ten pounds Scot." ! : What ever became of the defendant I do ! He Wide and Don't iet Spoofed. London six iety is responsible for two new words, the use of which has already al-ready spread to America. One is "spoof" and the other is "wide." A "wide" person per-son is clever, knowing and capable of holding his own against sharpers or practical jokers. If you trick a man or ridicule his opinions you "spoof him. j Ilia UuallUeaiiom. Sitting upon a hotel piazza Judge Vir-: Vir-: pin was asked by a member of the Ox-' Ox-' ford county bar regarding the legal qual-i qual-i ifications of a practitioner in another ; part of Maine. Said he, "Mr. might tit in this chair while an elephant and a i mouse pass up the street before his eyes-Of eyes-Of the mouse he could tell you tho length I of the tail, the texture of the coat, and j the color of the eye, but it would netrer j occur to Mr. that he had seen an I elephant!" Lewiston Journal. ! ".- not snow, but I presume, had his history been traced thereafter, that the chronicles chron-icles would show that he turned Round-: Round-: head, rejoiced at Charles' tragic death upon the block, and smote the sons of Belial right heartily as a henchman of : the Lord Protector. , If the states of the Union, following in the fixitsteps of their cousin of England, change tho practice relative to breaches of promise they will need to exercise much wisdom und tact. They must lay down rules whereby the trusting and innocent in-nocent ffirl who joyfully prepares for the bridegroom who never conu-s shall not be confounded with the adventuress who, spideiiike, tangles her victim in the net of promi3, if not in the web of matrimony, matri-mony, and who finds equal profit eithei in wedlock or in a suit at law. It is the exception rather than the rule, though, for a jilted maiden of good breeding aud pure mind to seek a court for the redress of suutimeatal grievances. She sorrows |