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Show MR. BLAINE AND HIS SON'S MARRIAGE New York Sun. Tho cxplnnation of Mr. Blaine as to the unhappy marriage of hla son, rccentlj- dissolved dis-solved by a Dakota court, was made compulsory com-pulsory by the remarks of the judge in rendering ren-dering the decision. The judgo ventured to cast reflections on the mother of the youni; man, ns if by reason of her harshness tho young couple hud been estranged and the nnw divorced wife had becu driven from her husband. Mr. Blaine's letter to Father Ducey in 1SS0, Immediately after the marriage, relates re-lates circumstances which would justify any parents in misgivings as to such a union, and in censuring u. priest who gave to it tho sanction of a church. It was a secret marriage, so far at least as the family of young Blaine were concerned, and Its announcement struck thcin with painful surprise. Very properly, Mr. Blaine blames the priest rather than tho young pair. He solemnized privately the marriage of a lnd of less than 18 years of age to a girl who was his senior without notifying or consulting consult-ing parents so well kuown as the dlstln gulshed father and his wife, and without other witnesses than the priest's own household house-hold servants. It was an outrage which Mr. liluiuc had reason to resent with more indignation indig-nation thiin he expressed in his letter to lather Ducey, for the priest kuew that young Blaine wished to keep his intention to marry Miss Nevins a secret from his father. Father Ducey, therefore, aided aud abetted this son In conduct which was distinctly unfiltal, and which should have receivel his severe reproval instead. Well might Mr. Blaine, crushed by the boy's folly and incensed in-censed by the priest's assistance in It, cry out in pain and indignation that "as a father living under the divine institution of the family, as a citizen living under the divine order of society," he protested against the act, and held the priest responsible before God for "whatever evils resulting from this deplorable marriage" of which his son might be the author or the victim. The outcome of the union was as Mr. Blaine in his paternal knowledgo and aix 1 iety saw t hat it must be. It was the unfiap-piness unfiap-piness of an ill-mated pair thus joined together to-gether in deliance of w isdom, prudence, and all proper regard for parental feeling. Tl c young woman as of :i lemperament an the young n. a i of an unstaMeness of h Oler and in n MM for inalrlnmnial responsibility respon-sibility which made harmony in the ruar-ri-igc Impossible. So far from treating Ihe bride w ih harsh, ne-s, the elder Hlaines seem to have used every effort to make the beat of the impiu dent m&rriuge. There ia no justification fo-lbs fo-lbs criticism of the Dakota judge 0B Mrs. Blaine, the elder. She DOT the trial with a proud and touching endurance. The leltcr of Mr- Blaine is an expression of parental feeling which will gain for him the sympathy of every father. It is the true story wrung from him by torture. |
