Show news from new york yore interesting gossip by our correspondent in gotham obesity as a new cause for divorce many illegal a separations during the fie past 20 years NEW YORK YORI young maidens beware it single blessedness does not appeal to you and iou are contemplating matrimony be careful and do not put on too much weight in your new home or you may be relegated to the ranks ot of the glass widow because Is now an officially recognized cause for or hereafter slender maidens may recall with A ith a pang as they take the marriage vow that till death us do part means until I 1 get fat ind nd the well established ten dency of america american women to press the limit ot ol comfortable fordable for table plumpness plimp maness ness may well become a shad ow over many homes fat as a cauce for devoice was put into the record by louis loul lin a tailor tallor who was legally sela separated rated the other day from his wife by tha the supreme court ourt Xe according gording to the tory ot of the links and husband and wife agree e on that po nt when lo 10 ils married sarah IS 18 years ago she was fair to 1001 ulon with a figure that was aas more like a diana than a venus but alas time changes all things and sarah is no exception from a willowy maiden she pas ed through tl ti e varying biages becoming by turns plump large stout fat and finally obese louis couldn coulden t stand the last and so he applied to his local rabbi for a divorce according to the talmudic lw when he lie told the good man that sarah had increased from to the dechee was granted immediately louis in I 1 is childlike simplicity d d not a vait valt the formality ot of a divorce under the statute law but immediately married man led a young woman whose em ern bon point was in keeping with his taste sarah went to court and had this second marriage annulled and louis and sarah detent ned to try to livo do the past I 1 spent hundreds of dollars said louis buying her anti fat but it only made her larger when she grew to 20 pounds I 1 could stand it no longer yes said sarah he got so he eldom took me to parties and balls bails although I 1 am very fond of dancing and when we ne did go he refused to spiel with me I 1 could stand it no longer and I 1 aal applied lied tor for a limited divorce I 1 got it both admitted that maybe it if sarah should lose some of her tat fat they would be remarried MANY DIVORCES FOUND ILLEGAL speaking of divorces amazing irregularities in many ot of the divorces gran J 1 I d in this city with in the past 20 years have been discovered so far there is a flaw in one divorce out of every w five examined to these defects were found by william H Is jarvis of the census bureau and his corps of 0 0 1 1 00 15 divorce girls sent from washington for sta I 1 of divorces it if V ade known they would make bigamists of many couples married in good faith and legitimatize ll many children how much and how many of these dincov eries will be made public depends largely on oa ac tion to be taken by mr jarvis if he applies to 0 the court tor for necessary data in thousands of Q cases an order may be granted to unseal the papers t prom from 1886 to 1896 divorces were granted in I 1 the superior court and in the court of com common in on pleas here and in brooklyn the average was about a year tor for the ten years since they were replaced by the supreme court in 1896 the divorce records of these two courts in new york county have been filed away in the county courthouse records of divorces since 1896 are kept by the county clerk the 15 examiners from the census bureau have reached the year 1887 in la their examination and compilation already they have discovered that nearly 20 per cent of the papers filed away are incomplete they do not contala any final award or decree signed by a judge without this they are invalid it used to be the custom for many judges to announce their decisions from the bench decree granted to the plaintiff or defendant as the case might be then it was the duty of the attorney to prepare a formal decree have this signed by the judge and file it tor for record many lawyers neglected to do this their unsuspecting clients since then have married again and raised other families As a matter of law all such marriages are bigamous and all such calia dren of the second marriage even though it was contracted in good faith have no property rights the complications of this sort that will arise it if the incomplete records are ever made public are matters of distressful conjecture MANY superstitious foreigners it will probably surprise many to learn that there are thousands of people in this city who believe in ghosts witches spooks and super sti eions director smith of central park called atten tion to one large body of the superstitious a few weeks ago when he protested in their behalf against the sale of the two donkeys in the zoo he declared that it if at least one of the donkeys was not kept on hand mothers of babies with whooping cough or threatened with that corn com plaint would be after him tooth and nail and why simply because it baby has whooping cou cough gh mother or nurse anks aks off with him to central park and passes his wee body three times under and over the donkey donkeys s body in a circle and of course athe the whooping cough disappears it may take soa time for the cure to be effected but that is not the donkey donkeys s fault on the east side and particularly among the foreign quarters there are whole colonies which believe firmly in witchcraft they have been reared in that belief and have a surprising knowledge about evil eyes and other things akin to the saper supernatural natural one woman for instance has slept under the bed instead of on it tor for over ten years in fact eier since she was told that some night a witch would come and cast a spell over her in her sleep so she sleeps under her bed on the floor every night so that the witch cannot find her alme mme a bohemian lady has been worling worl ing among this class 0 of people tor for some time past in an effort to drive these foolish notions ou out of f their heads in her work she has encountered a great many strange ca cases men and women go to her imploring her to remove the spell cast on them by the evil eye in some instances many months work is necessary before these people can be conNin convinced ced that there is no such power in existence e GIRLS ON ODD VACATION TRIP miss jessie alythe and miss ruth M garri son both of montreal canada passed through this city the other morning on motor bicycles bicycle of thice horsepower en route for washington in this way they are spending their vacation they left montreal tour four weeks ago and on their ar rival here they had traveled about 1200 1 miles miss blythe is the daughter ot of john E blythe a member of the montreal stock ex change and miss garrison th daughter daigh da ter of roger garrison a wealthy grain merchant the same city our average dally daily run was 40 miles mile s said miss garrison we could easily have covered more than doubt that distance a dav but we started out tor for health and pleasure and not to break records and our necks miss garrison maintain maint alna aim that motor cycling is the finest of exercises for women and that it es the happy medium between and ordinary bicycling the value of this means of locomotion too in her opinion is not appreciated as it should be not a few persons she said scorn the idea of being pushed along by a pu t of petroleum believing that there is no exercise in it they think 11 must be tiresomely inactive but put such a cyclist on a well adjusted motor cycle and tell him how to run the thing and a very few miles will convert him I 1 a enthusiast there Is not only a lot of fun but a lot of exercise in this sort of cycling exercise moreover of a pleasanter and healthier de do than thun that taken by the 3 cyclist PET OF THE BATTERY MISSING nobody knows where he got hi name has disappeared from battery park is a little half breed fox terrier and for years he has lived along the decks on south street by night and in fiant of the barge office by day every policeman every tramp every longshore man evera ever newsboy and tor for that matter every I 1 body who had business that took him to south ferry and south street more than once a week knew tor for was the smartest sleek est little tramp ot of a dog that ever begged a meal t from a free lunch counter came to the battery five years ago dick ganley one of the veterans of the police force found him was so hungry that he could hardly stand up and ganley hurried to a nearby delicatessen shop and got a banquet for the dog ate until he almost exploded then ganley took him inside the barge office and showed him a hot hoise se alanl et that wasn gasn t in use fi fie e minutes later was sleeping the sleep of the just when he awoke somebody called him and ever after that was his name ganley says the dog practically named himself one ot of s battery park friends thinks went to the west indies on a nova ova selio schooner oner and that he will eventually show up agall nobody believes he has been killed except possibly by accident |