ing his
tired head on his arm, listening for hours with great patience. We also
hear of petitions for damages being presented for failure to keep a
promise to marry--the action being brought against the girl's father.
This would be thought a trifle strange, but an action against a woman
for breach of promise is quite in order yet.

Recently the Honorable Henry Ballard of Vermont won heavy damages
against a coy and dallying heiress who had played pitch and toss with a
good man's heart. The case was carried to the United States Supreme
Court and judgment sustained.

The question of marriage and divorce now in the United States is almost
precisely where it was in Rome in the time of Marcus Aurelius. No two
States have the same marriage-laws, and marriages which are illegal in
one State may be made legal in another. Yet with us, any court of
jurisdiction may declare any marriage illegal, or set any divorce aside.
What makes marriage and what constitutes divorce are matters of opinion
in the mind of the judge. We have gone a bit further than Marcus,
though, in that we allow couples to marry if they wish, yet divorce is
denied if both parties desire it. The fact that they want it is
construed as proof that they should not have it. We meet the issue,
however, by connivance of the lawyers, who are officers of the court,
and a legal fiction is inaugurated by allowing a little bird to tell the
judge what decision will be satisfactory to both sides. And in States or
countries where no divorce is allowed, marriage can be annulled if you
know how--see Ruskin versus Ruskin, Coleridge, J.

Our zealous New Thought friends, who clamor to have marriage made
difficult and divorce easy, forget that the whole question has been
threshed over for three thousand years, and all schemes tried. The
Romans issued marriage-licenses, but before doing so a pretor passed on
the fitness of the candidates for each other. This was so embarrassing
to many coy couples that they just waived formal proceedings and set up
housekeeping. To declare these people lawbreakers, Marcus Aurelius said,
would put half of Rome in limbo, just as, if we should technically
enforce all laws, it would send most members of the Legislature to the
penitentiary. So the Emperor declared de-facto marriage de jure, and for
a short time succeeded in striking out the word illegitimate as applied
to a person, on the ground that, in justice, no act of a parent could be
charged up ag