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Show THE SENATE IN SESSION A Bill to Relieve Gen. Lairton of His Disabilities Favorably Reported. Edmonds' Bill to Pension Mrs. Urant Passes the Senate To-Day. Senator Jackson Proposes an -Amendment to the Constitotion Making the Presidential Term 6 Years. Anjriu Cannon's Case Settled. Washington, December 14. The Supreme Court to-day Affirmed the judgment of the Supreme Court of Utah in the case of Angus M. Cannon, plaintiff in error, against the United States. Cannon was indicted under the Edmunds Act for unlawful cohabitation with more than one woman. Defendant objected to giving any evidence on the ground that the indictment did not allege that he was a male person, nor that the cohabitation was with women as his wives. The objection was tfver- ! ruled a a verdict of guilty returned, and defendant sentenoed to pay. a fine of $300 and to be imprisoned for si; months, and to be further imprisoned till payment of the fine. Justice Miller dissented from the opinion of the Court. Judge Blatchford in his opinion says: "The court properly charged that the defendant de-fendant was to be found guilty if he lived in the same house with the two women and ate at their respective tables one-third of his time or thereabouts, and HELD THEM OUT TO THE WOBLD BY HIS LANGUAGE LAN-GUAGE Or oonduct, or both, as his wives, and that it was not necessary that it should be shown that he and the two women, or either of them occupied the same bed or slept in the same room, or that he had sexual intercourse with them. It is the practice of . unlawful cohabitation with more than one woman that is aimed at a cohabitation classed with polygamy and having its outward semblance. It is not on the one hand meretricious unmarital intercourse with more than one woman the general legislation legisla-tion as to lewd practices being left to the Territorial government nor on the other hand does the statute ' pry into the intimacies in-timacies of the marriage relation, but it seeks not only to punish bigamy and polygamy polyg-amy when direct proof of the existence of these relations can be made, but to prevent a man from FLAUNTING IN THE FACE OF THE WOBLD The ostentation and opportunities of a bigamous big-amous household with all the outward appearances ap-pearances of the continuance of the same relations which existed before the act was passed and without reference to what may occur in the privacy of those relations. And, again, in the spirit of the interpretation, a man cohabits with more than one woman in sections 3, 5 and 8 of the act when holding out to the world two women as his wives by language or conduct, or by both, he lives in the house with them and eats at the table of each a portion of his time, although he does not occupy the same bed or sleep in the same room with either of them or actually have sexual intercourse inter-course with either of them. HE HOLDS TWO WOMEN OUT TO THE WOBLD As his wives, by his conduct, when he maintains main-tains two wives and the children of each and all in the same house with himself, and regularly reg-ularly eats at the table of each and acts as the head of the two families." The opinion gives Webster's definition of the word "cohabit," and says section 3 of the act was intended to reach the exhibition of all indicia of plural marriage in a household house-hold and a family twice repeated. The objections to the indictment because it does not allege that defendant was a male person, nor that he cohabited with two women as his wives, or as persons held out as his wives, are overruled under the criminal crimi-nal procedure act of Utah, the defendant having pleaded and not demurred, and being held to have understood distinctly that THE CHABGE WAS AGAINST A MALE PERSON And was for cohabiting with women as wives, and not having been prejudiced by the failure to so allege. The opinion concludes with the statement that a strong appeal was made in the argument argu-ment not to uphold the rulings of the trial court because that would require a polygamous polyga-mous husband not only to cease living with his plural wives, but also to abandon the women themselves, and the Supreme Court of the United States was asked to indicate what the conduct of the husband toward them must be in order to conform to the requirements re-quirements of the law. The law says no court can say in advance what particular state of things will be lawful, further than that THE MAN MUST NOT COHABIT WITH MOBE THAN ONE WOMAN, In the sense of the word cohabit, as defined. "While Congress had legitimatized the issue of polygamous marriages, born before January Janu-ary 1st, 1883, it had left the conduct of the man towards the polygamous wife to be regulated by considerations which are outside out-side of Section 3 and are not covered by statute, and which must be dealt with, judicially judi-cially when properly presented. From the decision of the Court, Justices Miller and Field dissented. - Justice Miller, in dissenting from the decision, deci-sion, said: "I think the act of Congress, when prohibiting cohabitation with more than one woman, MEANT UNLAWFUL AND " HABITUAL SEXUAL INTEBOOUBSE. It is, in ray opinion, a strained construction of a highly penal statute to hold that men can be guilty under that statute without the accompaniment of the actual sexual connection. connec-tion. I know of no instance in which the word 'cohabitation' has been used to describe a criminal offense when it did not imply sexual intercourse." |