The Project Gutenberg EBook of Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99.,
October 11, 1890, by Various

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Title: Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., October 11, 1890

Author: Various

Release Date: May 28, 2004 [EBook #12467]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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PUNCH,

OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

VOL. 99.

October 11, 1890.

MODERN TYPES.

(_BY MR. PUNCH'S OWN TYPE WRITER._)

NO. XX.--THE DIVORCEE.

The Court over which Sir JAMES HANNEN presides was instituted for
the purification of morals by the separation of ill-assorted couples.
Matrimonial errors, which had hitherto stood upon the level of
political grievances, capable of redress only after the careful and
unbiassed attention of British legislators had been, at much expense
both of time and money, devoted to them, were henceforth to form the
subject of a special procedure in a division of the Courts of Law
created for the purpose, and honestly calculated to bring separation
and divorce within the reach even of the most modest incomes. The
tyrant man, as usual, favoured himself by the rules he laid down for
the playing of the game. For whereas infidelity on the part of the
wife is held to be, in itself, a sufficient cause for pronouncing a
decree in favour of the husband, a kind, though constantly unfaithful
husband, is protected from divorce, and only punished by separation
from the wife he has wronged. It is necessary for a man to add either
cruelty or desertion to his other offence, in order that his wife
may obtain from the laws of her country the opportunity of marrying
someone else. But the wit of woman has proved equal to the emergency.
Nowhere, it may be safely stated, have more tales of purely
imaginative atrocity been listened to with greater attention, or with
more favourable results, than in the Divorce Court. On an incautious
handshake a sprained wrist and an arm bruised into all the colours of
the rainbow have been not infrequently grafted. A British imprecation,
and a banged door, have often be