THE LAST THING IN DIVORCE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 435, 13 May 1863, Page 6

THE LAST THING IN DIVORCE.

!; f (From iheySuturday Review ) ■■• -■- It must be a strongish page in domestic history which extorted from the dura Cre'sstwelli ilia the exclamation, "This is a painful —I had had well-nigh said a disgusting—case ;" but the Judge of the Divorce Court expressed himself even more emphatically, he would not have too forcibly characterised the case of Gipps i>. Gipps and Hume, upon which his Lordship delivered an elaborate judgment on Tuesday last. The facts, though not likely to be forgotten, may be summarily stated. Mr Gipps, a gentleman of some independence, married in 1851, a Miss Cruikshank. The marriage was an unhappy one. The parties •wrangled and. separated, came together and separated again, and two children were the fruit of their precarious union. After the second separation Mrs Gipps met with a gentleman of fortune, Mr Hume, M.P. for Wicklow, possessed of country-houses, plentiful means in possession, and larger in reversion. The consequence was that the half-attached wife—a grass' widow, as the phrase runs— formed an adulterous connection with the senator. Mr Gipps sought the convenient aid of the Divorce Court, and presented a petition, which, as Jiidge Cresswell observed, all but indicated collusion on the face of it. He asked for divorce, but not for damages; because by a private arrangement conducted through the extremly friendly agency of Mr Halliwell, a sum of L 3,000 had been lodged in that convenient gentleman's hands to await the result of the suit, and to be taken in lieu of costs and damages. Shortly before the trial a fre3h arrangement was entered into between Mr Gipps and Mr Hume, through their respective solicitors, to the effect that, in consideration of the L 3,000 already paid, and of a further sum of four thousand pounds to be paid to Mr Gipps by Mr Hume after his death, with interest duly payable until that event took place, the suit should He', withdrawn: This pleasant and profitable arrangement could not, however, be literally carried out Mrs Gipps was no party to it; and it is not clear whether Mr Hume was or wa3 not aware of, or had or had not provided for, the breakdown which ensued. The case "was opened, the- jury were sworn, but, as Mr Gipp3 offered no evidence, the verdict was necessarily entered for Mrs Gipps and Mr Hume. Mrs Gipps then demanded a separation and L2OO per annum, but this was refused by the husband on the ground of the exorbitant character of the terms. Mr Hume upon this declined to secure the L 4,000, on the ground that, technically and. literally, the agreement had been carried out. The agreement was that the petition should be withdrawn; but it was not withdrawn, because Mrs Gipps would not consent to the withdrawal'; all that was dons was that no evidence was tendered, and the suit died a natural instead of an artificial death. At this stage of the matter, of course, Mr Hume congratulated himself that his sin had only cost him L 3.000 instead of L7,0G0. Mr Gipps was very reasonably vexed that he had not made L 7,000, as he had promised himself, as the somewhat extravagant price of his duhouor; and, having failed in the Court of Morals, he had recourse to the Court of Equity, and filed a bill for performance of the agreement. Austere Vice-Chancellor Wood, however, thought that the agreement was against public morality, and constituted a fraud on the Divorce Court, and he allowed Mr Hume's demurrer. The bargain entered into by the husband to supply his wife at contract price could not be sustained. Foiled in his appeal to chancery, Mr G"ipps falls back upon the friendly offices of the Divorce Court, which had already stood him in good stead, and once more makes his bow to Justice Cresswell. It is scarcely needful to mention, even by way of parentHesis, the intervening and most natural proceedings of the respondent and co-respondent in the way of morality. Of course, the intercourse of Mr Hume and Mrs Gipps was rene.wed —if, indeed, it had ever been suspended. Mr Gipps now comes forward as the indignant husband in plain earnest. Stung with the loss of the odd. L 4,000, his stern morality fires up, and he asks fora divorce from his dishonoured consort. When taunted with the particulars of the arrangement under which the previous suit had failed, he s*ys that, whatever he mij>ht have done as to the adultery committed before the legal breakdown, his object was, in that bargain of connivance at the past, to keep the adulteress chaste for the futnre. He never dreamed of the possibility of the renewal of the connexion between his wife and her paramour. The smart money for the:past sin was a guarantee for the future virtue. Indeed, so strong was Mr Gipp's confidence in the cooling qualities of the L 3,000 already paid, that upon Mr Hume proposing to renew the arrangement about the L 4.000— with the simple proviso that some portion of it, especially the annual interest, should be secured for Mrs Gipps' support, instead of the whole sum getting into the injured husband's pocket—the injured husband was quite surprised at Mr Hume's impertinent interference between him and the wife of his bosom, and at his daring to indicate terms of separation between those whom God had joined together and (the little matter of adultery, notwithstanding) Sir Cresswell Cresswell had not put asunder. In other words, 'if Mr Gipps could get the whole L 7,000 entire and unencumbered with any outgoings, that was the exact price at which he appraised his wife.She was too precious a commodity to be disposed of at the trifling figure of £3,000. At 1,3,000' he was still the faithful safe custodian of his wife's contingent and prospective virtue. At L 7,000 she was to have a letter of license. If the L 7,000 had beeu paid, as Sir Cresswell.Cresswell observed, nothing would have been heard of the suit. As it is, we have heard of it, and heard a great deal too much of it. It has been very properly decided; and the suit for divorce on the ground of the second instalment of adultery ha* been most righteously dismissed. Mrs. Gipps will remain Mrs. Gipps till the end of the chapter. Mr. Hume, by the aid of some very astute - lawyers, has saved his L 4,000, and escapes the necessity of espousing his costly Helen; and every party to the suit quits the Divorce Court enveloped in dirt and disgrace. Mr. Gipps did not come into court with clean hands, and he is dismiased from it with something dirtier than his very foul hands. Two points, very important in the interests of public morality, were laid down in ; 1 Justice Cresswell's judgment. Adverting to ; < the arrangement which terminated the first J puit for divorce, the Judge observed that a i man consenting to receive a sum of money for i withdrawing such a suit "sells his. assent to the adultery. He wilfully closes his eyes then, } and his position is very much the same as if he '. < had wilfully closed his eyes before the suit i was commenced." Having done this—having i found that his wife is.au adultres-!, and having '. for a sum of money foregone his claim to a di-j; vorce, allowing and stipulating that she should continue to be his wife-—does he show himself '. so far regardless of his own honor as to be regarded as tacitly consenting to, if not sanction- j ing and bargaining for, -adultery for the fu- - ; ture? Mr. Justice Cresswell decides that; such is Mr.^Gipps| position,• arid that he is de-;;' barred:from any ;remedy":o« the ground of his ; palpable connivaacev in. the.-continued, or-!: second instalment of, adultery. Adultery is not to be parcelled out into instil- ',-

ments. A man ia not to say, For so much I am paid, and I am satisfied with my bargain; for so mucli I may "bring-in my little running account, say at Christina*,'' till' the-yearly ptipply of wile has been paid for. The Divorce Court declines to allow itself to, take the place of a County Court, and to order, instant execution —we mean instant divorce— whenever Hoitensius declines, to pay Cato the annuity agreed upon for the loan of a wife!. The case is, happily, a new one. In one sen^e it extends, or rather it does not so much extend as expound and fill up, the doctrine of ' collusion, llertofore, collusion has been canvassed, if on pecuniary grounds, at to its effect? on a single course or act, of adultery. . If it is found that a man winks at his own dishonour from pecuniary or other motives, he is debarred from divorce; but what Mr Gipps claimed wag to be in a better position now to secure a divorce, because, on a former occasion, he did no! exactly close his ejres to his dishonour, but rather was paid for closing them once, and. therefore, retained the right tn be piid for closing them again. As to his plea ttiat he intended the first arrangement as a security for his" wife's future chastit}', this allegation was disposed of by the fact that the bargain, a* originally entered into, and on which the L 3.000 was paid, did not pretend to . enforce any such security, and that it was never thought of till difficulties arose about the payment of the L 4.000. It was much feared that the Divorce Court would be used by husbands with a commercial estimate of the value of a wife, It was pro- • phesied that it would encourage collusion—■ that it would preserve most of the evils of the crim. con. procedure, and add to them special . outrages on public morals It is undeniable that salacious tastes are amply provided for in the reports of the Divorce Court, and that melancholy opportunities are given for the highly moral censors of the press who spread the fan and leer through the sticks at. Leda and her sisters. But such, a judgment as Sir Cresswell Cresswell's will do a good deal to check the possible, or perhaps the unavoidable, ahnse of law which was itself unavoidable. At any rate, this dirty case .does not make divorca more easy, and the infamous bargain between Mr Gipps and Mr Hume was just as possible under the old law as under the new.