DIVORCES IN ENGLAND.

Taranaki Daily News, 13 March 1920, Page 10

DIVORCES IN ENGLAND.

ALL RECORDS ECLIPSED. The greatest chapter of divorce in the history of the Law Courts closed with the end of the Michaelmas sitting, writes a correspondent from London,' and though January will see another stupendous list for the judges to face, it is probable that the late term, with it 3 ISOO odd undefended petitions, and 250 defended suits, will stand as a record in the annals of English divorce. Though the war has been a paramount factor in the unsettling of the home life <u the country, and has sent the divorce thermometer up to jvn unprecedently high figure, we can see very little hope of any appreciable change for two or three years, even now that war has ceased, and one might conceivably look forward to a rehabilitation of family and home. The fact is that the unsettling, of the morals of the nation is in its effect something like the unsettling of material affairs. And quite apart from the war element in the recent expanded divorce list, the Poor Persons' Rules have opened up an avenue of freedom for all people of slender means, who in the old days could do no more than look on and envy their bettor-conditioned neighbors in their ability to indulge in what was really a luxury. But now it is common knowledge that freedom is to be obtained at a minimum of cost, and the experience of Mr. Odrian Hassard-Short, the Secretary of the Department at the Law Courts, which deals with "poor persons," is .that more and more will be coming forward to avail themselves of the "cheapened article" as they became familiar with its process. Speaking broadly, he is still receiving 20 and 30 applications per day far admission to the ranks of poor persons, and 90 per cent, of the applicants are in quest of matrimonial freedom or other relief that the Divorce Court offers.

Manv of the paries that have been related week by week in the busiest of busy terms that has jii3t ended, have been the stories of home-wreck, not of recent times, but of long years ago, long 'before the war was dreamt of. Wives have been deserted, and thrown upon their own resources for a livelihood—often with the full knowledge of the man living in open misconduct with another woman, and yet helpless. An appeal to the magistrate, an order for maintenance, and a world of worry to obtain the pittance of shillings per week —that has been their lot. To sue for divorce has meant a burden of expense too heavy to contemplate, and there has been nothing but to drift along, with only the remotest hone of eventual freedom. To such the Poor Persons Rules have come as ji real blessing, and, though husbands and wives who seek redress after years of waiting have to account for delay, the absence of means is a sufficient and accepted excuse.