cording to rule. The French are amazed at the constitutional
mere fact that a commission has been appointed by Government to
torpor which possesses Englishmen, and keeps a crowded court in inquire into the law of divorce implies some substantial reform of
a silence broken only by the monotonous voice of judge, counsel, that law. Of such a consequence there can tie no question ; nor
or witness • and they impute it to our apathy that we choose to can there be much question respecting the nature . of some among halt before we arrive at the truth. We may retort, that it-is their the most considerable improvements that have long waited for such
love of talking which makes them overrun the truth. A French- treatment. To meddle with the subject at all, and not to follow it the bond of wedlock as if it were a luxury and not an ant of jus- or dangers of this irrepressible habit ; and half the evidence inia tice, by making it one of the costliest of processes cannot be al- French court of law, in favour of -one side, is furnished by the al- lowed to survive inquiry. Under the very stringent laws and restrained avowals on the other. It-is our business, however, to ; usages of our day it may be said, that wherever divorce is recog- profit bv these examples. The weakness upon which we look down nized as permissible, it is also necessary to justice, to humanity, ; in the l'reneh often brings them nearer to truth and justioe than and to sound morals. But that which is thus solemnly necessary , our technical ignoring of facts and deliberate waiver-of truth. In is now available oily to the rich,. denied to the poor ; so that the no branch of our law 'do we permit essential truth and substantial law becomes the positive upholder of. that which is unjust, cruel, justice to escape more .than in the divorce law : of course this and immoral.'munch of the subject will be overhauled by the Commission, and The technical absurdities--which make the- law available to men I the result must be some simplification.of procedure ,and triininal. but not to women cannot continue.
§ir r b • :it.> r4testiouteoff inerinnatteffectively investigated by iliteteents of law, but theeteinre compels -the question to be:brought
before the court as- one of " damages " is condemned for reasons: more prelatical -than its ■mere absurdity. The indirectness of the mode frequently tends to keep in- the background thereally essen- tial facts; and the compulsion-of proceeding for damages--is in it- self an outrage on the.honourable feelings, enough to deter many aggeievedpersetui from seeking redress.
ngl beattOred diversities of tribunals before 'which such (pies-- tiontsfare brought, is not only a- needless complication, but it serves: Wperpetuatetifferent varieties of absurdity. The proceeding be fereithe Lords for coMplete divorce is 'cumbersome and.costly ; the prelladeary action for damages, in thelaw courts,is -vexatious end. indirect ; ,the proceedings for partial divorce, from bed and board,- in the courts:of Doctors' Commons,- are loaded:-with, the faults of antiquated pleadings, and of most -antiquated judgments—are cumbersome and yet not effective, indecent and yet not searching, ludicrously fettered by punctilio and yet often most cruel. A sa- tisfactory reform of the divorce law would altogether remodel or: abolish the jurisdiction and proeedure of the family-parties, mis- called courts, near St. Paul's.
Some of the absurdities in the English mode of taking evidence find their caricature in these courts. We laugh at the French for their methods, but certainly we furnish as good an occasion for laughter. Two capital instances are before the public this week, in the case of the Abbe Gothland, at the Assize Court-of Angou- lame, and the case of King versus King, in the Consistory Court of London. The Abbe is accused of poisoning a servant who threat- ened to disclose his criminal intimacy with the wife of a -physician. We find that the proceedings consist, not in the cool examination of witnesses as to the specific facts, but in a sort of animated- con- troversy, continued without cessation, between the judge, the wit- nesses, the prisoner, and the counsel on both sides. The judge not only admits evidence on specific facts, but conversations, hearsay reports, and rumours concerning irrelevant matters ; he not only receives them, but invites them; he enters into controversy with the witnesses and the prisoner as to the probability of the aver- ments, and tries to trip up the prisoner in argument. The effect is, that the jury retire with a -confused mass of facts, fictions, ex- clamations, scenes, surprises, rumours, recriminations, gestures, and dramatic emotions ; and out of the mass they stumble upon what may generally be called a resemblance of the trtrth. In the present ease, for example, the lady was accused of complicity in the murder ; there were fragments of evidence against- her, bet no pains was taken to follow them up or put them together; the chief pains, in her part of the case, was to expatiate on evidence blasting her general character for 'conjugal fidelity ; a sort of- evi- dence which had little specific bearing-on the issue. She is acquitted. Gothland was pronounced " guilty with extenuating circum- stances." Now there could be no circumstances to extenuate the coldblooded crime he had committed, if he was guilty at all ; but the jury probably inserted that modification to represent certain doubts of the fact suggested by the imperfection of merely circum- stantial evidence : it was false, therefore, to say he was "guilty with extenuating circumstances "•, but as the animated' contro- versy carried on in court furnished a dramatized vorsion of the facts, so the verdict bears a certain analogical resemblance to the true verdict, a qualified judgment of condemnation.
Our more scrupulous procedure limits the evidence to specific facts so strictly that the essential facts are often kept out of view. A fact may be notorious to every person in 'court, and yet every person in court must ignore it. The jury is often forbidden to go so far as the manifest verdict. In the King case, the judgment is a marvel of inconsistent conclusions. Great intimacy having been proved between Mrs. King and the Vicomte St. Jean, the Court presumed the utmost intimacy ; but would not accept Mr. King's denial of the counter-plea that he had been guilty of adultery with his nurse, because, while the evidence proved his disposition to be a Don Juan, the Court would not believe his own allegation of total inability to sustain that character; and therefore, in his in- stance, the Court also presumed the sequel of. things proved. Having. by these jumps come to the conclusion. that the parties were wholly unfit to hve together, the Court dismissed the case—
THE DIVORCE COMMISSION. declining to separate them. It would be difficult. to find a greater
, which converts silence it:LW into an exclamation. It is surprising. ambition in the art of sinking altogether unheard of.
how much the incidents of their fiction turn upon the disolosures - That state of the law, for example, which treats divorce from
tice, by making it one of the costliest of processes cannot be al- French court of law, in favour of -one side, is furnished by the al- lowed to survive inquiry. Under the very stringent laws and restrained avowals on the other. It-is our business, however, to ; usages of our day it may be said, that wherever divorce is recog- profit bv these examples. The weakness upon which we look down nized as permissible, it is also necessary to justice, to humanity, ; in the l'reneh often brings them nearer to truth and justioe than and to sound morals. But that which is thus solemnly necessary , our technical ignoring of facts and deliberate waiver-of truth. In is now available oily to the rich,. denied to the poor ; so that the no branch of our law 'do we permit essential truth and substantial law becomes the positive upholder of. that which is unjust, cruel, justice to escape more .than in the divorce law : of course this and immoral.'munch of the subject will be overhauled by the Commission, and
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