Show THE RECENT DIVORCE SUIT do the courts make our laws EDITOR sunday morn ings tribune contains what purports to be a report of the recent divorce case of vs cahoon but as will be discovered by any one conversant with the facts it is only par bially correct it may however be as truthful as the accustomed depre rather on to which that journal resorts in all matters of a local import but when viewed in the light of truth aside from bigotry or prejudice it falls far short of the mark many important facts elicited at the trial in favor of the plaintiff are entirely omitted while others of little consequence or importance through favoring defendant aro colored and magnified ax yond reason that mrs cahoon had planting thesbit the suit and should have been awarded a decree of divorce the evidence and the law as adduced at the trial will am ply prove for eighteen months they occupied separate apartments and virtually did not live tog ther as husband and wife but were almost constantly in trouble mr Ga boons violent temper and continual faultfinding caused deep and agonizing troubles to his wife and bis physical chastisements though not of the harshest kind prove sufficient to produce in any sensitive heart the in tensest suffering and sorrow we are aware that the sympathy of many of their old friends particularly those of the church to which they belonged was altogether with the defendant even long before the facts involved in the case were made known and perhaps this state of affairs may have influenced his honor in making up his peculiar decision but t the mind of an impartial observer this very fact alone could not help but produce the conviction that a great and manifest injustice was ba ing done and inhumane treatment being inflicted upon a friendless though cultivated intelligent high minded and sensitive lady I do not propose to enter into the facts as set forth in the trial but will briefly refer to the law governing the case this suit as I understand it was brought under the new divorce statute of 1878 the sevenia and last cause for which a divorce may be granted being given therein as follows for the cruel treatment of plaintiff by the defendant to the extent of great bodily injury or great mental cash ut U not only had cruel treatment causing bodily injury been lamply proven in this case but also such cruel treatment as would mental distress in any ordinary mind much less that of a sensitive and delicate woman like mrs C therefore these facts being proven and the law specifically providing that they are sufficient to entitle plaintiff to a divorce by what authority we would ask does judge emerson presume to dismiss the suit in his decision of friday we find the following set forth as a justification it is true as stated by counsel that plaintiff has said she his suffered great mental distress yet courts never grant a divorce on such proof as the mere statements of plaintiff it is not competent for one to say on oath merely that she has suffered great mental distress the court must look to all the circumstances cum stances to see if they ought to have caused such distress it was not upon the mere statement of plaintiff that cruel treatment had been received that the court was asked to weigh this part of the evidence but upon her statement corroborated and confirmed by the testimony of several creditable and reliable witnesses all of which when taken together fully and post lively proved that crue treatment such as the statute set forth causing great mental distress had been in As to the reason fr this distress his honor could not pos sibly have fallen in eror for it was directly and conclusively traced to defendants conduct and as dively proven as the distress itself says the court must look to the circumstances to see if they ought to have cayse uca dis if abl last proposition is correct that the court is to disregard the fact that and permit this important feature of the case to be swallowed up in the conjecture that perhaps such and such treatment ought not to produce the distress alleged what gret and dangerous uncertainty must attend al actions for divorce and boar unnecessary is provision of the law at all t can be evaded and et aside upon the mere opinion of the judge and the whole issue of such calep be made to rest the ever changing opinion of the court for no two men view matters exactly alike fand no two cases are exactly aunill in their character phar acter As wa view it if or mental distress has been occasioned as provided n the thal divorce should hare been granted and no mere opinion of the court should be permitted o terrene to prevent tho ends of justice or to controvert the law in conclusion I would eay thit I heartily concur in the judges opinion that divorce should not be granad for frivolous causes and that the bonds cf matrimony are too sacred to he broken or the ordinary trouble and differences of married life but when the husband and wife are separated aa in this adae living apart occupying diio rent apartments for a long period of and never meeting or aaa another except with feelings of aversion and a remembrance ol 01 past wrongs when there exists ao earthly pro peet for a reconciliation and it is impossible for to lire ber ia that holy union that should characterize izo the married state then I say it is far better for them to separate and let their sorrows troubles and aversions be buried in the forgetfulness of a distant separated from the scenes walh constantly consta atly irritate and the M which add fuel to the tire of hate respectfully A |