SIDE-LIGHTS ON AMERICAN LIFE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2722, 16 May 1906, Page 76

SIDE-LIGHTS ON AMERICAN LIFE.

THE SUBJECT OF DIVORCE.

BY MAOBIIiANDA.

(For the Witness.)

Divorce is the conversational rock upon which the unwary often- split on coming to the States. In the beginning of things ife is difficult for the colonial, who has been, accustomed to look upon divorce as an occasional, r^^ssary evil, to understand the American lVnt °^ view. Here it is a mere matter of business, and of no more importance than the changing of one's residence; both operations entail temporary discomfort ! A twice-widowed Antipodean of my acquaintance was well nigh mortally offended recently when a friendly American casually asked, "And which husband were you divorced from?"

It required some persuasion before sh« was niade to realise that the question. hud not been intended as an insult. The American was much perplexed. The bewildering custom of the women taking back their unmarried names too leads the incautious into many a. difficulty. It is so impossible to think that the bright, charming, gay girl you have known as Miss Columbia -for several months is ■ thoheroine of a divorce case. When, in a casual manner, you stumble upon the «nlJSfhtenme fact you are half inclined to pity or blush. She treats the incident- as merely an interesting episode in her career, and of no importance whatever so far as the next man is concerned; it is certainly nothing to be ashamed off One such/ girl recently applied for a position as a shorthand writer. The employer asked the usual question: "Married or unmarried?" "Unmarried — four times!" came tha prompt reply.

I myself was recently greatly attracted by a particularly fascinating youngAmerican woman, and discovered, in the course of conversation, that she had been, , divorced from seven husbands, and, though, she was now married to the eighth, -was contemplating a trip to South Dakota, which, as every American knows, is usually the prelude to another suit.

It is in tliese- frequent changes of tho marital relations that tbe amazing goodnatured complacency of the American womin is seen at its best. During th© last Christmas shopping bout a young airl in great perplexity appealed to me. She was purchasing her presents, and had satisfied herself as to gifts for her mother and father, but, as she was going with her mother to spend a few -weeks with her father and his second wife, she wished to take something particularly pleasing to the lady she called "stepmother."

Another young friend has had a multiplicity of such relations, • as. her mother has been - married three times and her father twice-. All the people concerned are now living. At present she is without a home, as, though her father ard she are in accoTd, she does not find "Mary" — the second wife^ — an agreeable companion, while "Bob" — the mother's third venture — > is so immsrsed in business as to be altogether unentertaining. This is one of the few instances where the ready, goodhumoured acceptance of what we should call "impossible situations" 6eems to have failed.

An American writer tells a story, which is not a whit exaggerated, of an American who announced her engagement to a broker of a distant city. " But," protested her English friend on learning the news, '• what can you mean? You are maiTied, and Mr Brown is married too- — I met his wife a little while ago.*' "Oh," returned the other, "bat we are going- to get our divorces m the spring. I liaven't told my husband vet, and my fiance has not told hie wife !"

— Th« Lord Provost of Edinburgh is, hy virtue of his- office, Lord Admiral of the Firth of Forth. In Queen Mary's time tbo" Lord Provost had control of the Forth, and ' all movements of warships were regulated 1 ' through him. He is even yet entitled: to " an admiral's salute when he* board* a battleship in the estuary. — The extremely ancient superstition thai ' a loaf of bread, in the centre of which 6ome mercury has been placed,- will indicate the position of a drowned person, apparently still exists in the Midlands. According to a. report from the neighbourhood of Birmingham, tlie experiment* was recently tried, and, curiously enough', th» floating loaf of bread (if the- tale is to * be credited) did actually, by an extraordinary coincidence, stop over the spof ' where the conjee. w.a* ultimately found