KinSource - Tale of the Week - No Trivial Thing

KinSource

Minnesota Tales

The Minneapolis Journal, October 1, 1902, p. 6

NO TRIVIAL THING.

Judge McGee on Record as a Vigorous Defender of the Institution of Matrimony.

Three Husbands Who Sought Divorce Are Denied Relief for Reasons Forcibly Stated.

Judge McGee of the Hennepin district court, has gone on record as vigorously opposed to divorce for any trivial reason. Decisions and memoranda filed to-day in three cases show that the judge is a firm believer in the dignity and seriousness of the institution of matrimony and regards the yoke as too sacred a thing to be put on or off lightly. In all the cases decided to-day the husbands were the plaintiffs and in each case the petition is denied.

One of the disappointed petitioners is Ralph Schaft, who sought a separation from Fay Schaft, a variety actress, whom he accuses of desertion. They were married two years ago, when he was 21 and she was 17. Judge McGee denies the application for divorce and appends a memorandum reciting, from the evidence, how the plaintiff married the defendant, knowing the vicious character of her associations. The memorandum characteristically concludes:

Under the circumstances, and in the cases of this kind, I am of the opinion that the court ought not to stretch the evidence, or find corroboration of the plaintiff's testimony where the proof is meager, in order to allow him to escape from the situation that he voluntarily placed himself in. The plaintiff, in contracting the marriage in question made a fool of himself, and I think it would be well to allow him to take considerable time to realize just how much a fool he has made of himself; and it ought to be understood that when a person does what the plaintiff did in this case, he cannot come into court and almost as a matter of course obtain relief from his folly.

Harry Cotton's application for divorce contained charges that his wife was an abandoned woman and a frequenter of low resorts. The court denies the petition on the ground that the testimony adduced in support of the plaintiff's allegations is "all unworthy of credit and of such a character that no decree ought to be founded thereon. The plaintiff and the three witnesses called by him are all, on their own admissions, habitues and frequenters of houses of prostitution, and are low and disreputable characters."

In turning down Elmer F. Scheig's petition for divorce, the court explains that the plaintiff's habits were such that his wife was justified in leaving him, and that such action did not constitute desertion.