upon any grounds which may be considered as just and reasonable.

Miss Martineau mentions a divorce having been granted to a wife, upon
the plea of her husband being a gambler; and I was myself told of an
instance in which a divorce was granted upon the plea of the husband
being such an "_awful swearer_;" and really, if any one heard the
swearing in some parts of the Western country, he would not be surprised
at a religious woman requesting to be separated. I was once on board of
a steam-boat on the Mississippi, when a man let off such a volley of
execrations, that it was quite painful to hear him. An American who
stood by me, as soon as the man had finished, observed, "Well, I'm glad
that fellow has nothing to do with the engines: I reckon he'd burst the
_biler_."

Miss Martineau observes, "In no country I believe are the marriage laws
so iniquitous as in England, and the conjugal relation, in consequence,
so impaired. Whatever may be thought of the principles which are to
enter into laws of divorce, whether it be held that pleas for divorce
should be one, (as narrow interpreters of the New Testament would have
it;) or two, (as the law of England has it;) or several, (as the
Continental and United States' laws in many instances allow,) nobody, I
believe, defends the arrangement by which, in England, divorce is
obtainable only by the very rich. The barbarism of granting that as a
privilege to the extremely wealthy, to which money bears no relation
whatever, and in which all married persons whatever have an equal
interest, needs no exposure beyond the mere statement of the fact. It
will be seen at a glance how such an arrangement tends to vitiate
marriage: how it offers impunity to adventurers, and encouragement to
every kind of mercenary marriages; how absolute is its oppression of the
injured party; and how, by vitiating marriage, it originates and
aggravates licentiousness to an incalculable extent. To England alone
belongs the disgrace of such a method of legislation. I believe that,
while there is little to be said for the legislation of any part of the
world on this head, it is nowhere so vicious as in England."

I am afraid that these remarks are but too true; and it is the more
singular, as not only in the United States, but in every other
Protestant community that I have ever heard of, divorce can be obtained
upon what are considered just and legitimate grounds. It has been
supposed, that should the ma