MECCA OF DIVORCEES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19688, 15 January 1926, Page 4

MECCA OF DIVORCEES.

MANY SUITS IN PARIS. RUSH OF AMERICANS. EAST METHOD IN VOGUE. The divorce court mills are grinding faster and faster yet, as more and more money is thrust into the slot to make the wheels go round, writes a Paris correspondent. So many American divorce suits are being brought here that the French lawyers have protested against the ‘‘favoured nation” treatment, which they allegro is being accorded to foreigners, and more cspccailly Americans. Reno was once the Mecca of all Americans requiring a divorce on quick and easy terms. Now it is Paris. Rich and the less rich, the famous and the unknown, are all rushing across the Atlantic to secure divorces in Paris. More and more American lawyers open “law offices” in this ctiy, and as they have to employ French advocates to appear before the judges, the only local lawyers who complain against the American divorce rush are those who have not yet been employed by the American lawyers. The reasons for the popularity of the Paris divorce are;—No publicity, comparatively low cost, the ease in establishing a domocile and of securing a decree. The French newspapers are prohibited by a strictly enforced law from reporting or commenting on a divorce case. They may publish the bare fact that Mine X has been divorced from Monsieur X by a verdict given iu her favour, and that is ail. None of the daily papers, in point of fact, ever mention anything at all about divorce, though oceasoinally one of the lighter Parisian weeklies will make a veiled allusion, with initials only. The one organ which gives names and dates of divorce is the Petites affiches, a weekly offlcailiypublished newspaper. It is only since the war that Americans have become aware of the ease of French divorce—and hence thq more recent rush. The American correspondents here, who arc required to cable home every possible fact concerning a divorce granted in France, were faced with many difficulties. This caused a bright ,yonng French lawyer to establish what is practically a “divorce trust” to provide the American correspondents with divorce news. “Incompatibility of temperament” is the most favoured ground for divorce. It means so much —or so little. After the suit has been entered the judge'sends for the parties to the action to attend a “meeting of reconciliation.” It is usual for one of the parties not to attend the meeting, often neither responds, but sometimes both. So much trouble was caused at the Palais dc Justice by irate wives that just a year ago the authorities built two steel “cages” to replace the former waiting rooms. Here women waiting to appear before the judge are requested to bide their time and aie locked in! If (lie reconciliation fails, the suit, goes speedily to a conclusion, and a divorce is pronounced, usually within a period of not longer than six months. Sometimes the reconciliation is a success, and the couple depart arm-in-arm to live “happy ever after.” This actually occurred not long ago in the case of a former American heiress and a French nobleman.