31 AUGUST 1889, Page 3

The Divorce Law passed in France in 1884 seems to

be operating with terrible effect. In 1884 there were 3,657 divorces ; in 1885, 4,123; in 1886, 4,007; in 1887, 5,797. But the most astounding statement made is that in the Department of the Seine,-4.e., Paris and its neighbourhood,—there are no fewer than 628 divorces to every thousand marriages, or that considerably more than one in twenty marriages (say, one in sixteen) ends in a divorce. On the other hand, in the Finisterrs and the Cotes du Nord, not much more than one in a thousand marriages ends in a divorce,—a curious testimony this to the different morale of Parisian and provincial life in France.