Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 14.pdf/391

 352

dissolved the connubial ties theretofore existing between petitioner and his consort, Annie, granting her a divorce a vinculo matrimonii, with the beatific privilege thereunto annexed of marry ing again, a privilege, it goes without saying, she availed herself of with an alacrity of spirit and a fastidious levity disdaining pursuit; but on this vital point your honor extended to petitioner only the charity of your silence. "Petitioner has found in his own experience a truthful exemplification of Holy Scripture, that 1 it is not well for man to be alone,' and seeing an inviting opportunity to superbly ameliorate his forlorn condition by a second nuptial venture, he finds himself circumvallated by an Ossa Pelion obstacle which your honor alone has power to remove. "His days rapidly verging on the sere and yellow leaf, the fruits and flowers of love all go ing; the worm, the canker, and the grief in sight, with no one to love and none to caress him, petitioner feels an indescribable yearning, longing and heaving to plunge his adventurous prow once more into the vexed waters of the sea of Connubiality : Wherefore, other refuge hav ing none, and wholly trusting to the tender be nignity and sovereign discretion of your Honor, petitioner humbly prays that in view of the ac companying fiats of a great cloud of reputable citizens, giving him a phenomenally good name and fair fame, you will have compassion on him and relieve him of the hymeneal disability under which his existence has become a burden, by awarding him the like privilege of marrying again; thus granting him a happy issue out of the Red Sea of troubles into which a pitiless fate has whelmed him. For, comforting as the velvety touch of an angel's palm to the feverracked brow, and soothing as the strains of an ^iolian harp when swept by the fingers of the night-wind, and dear as those ruddy drops that visit these sad hearts of ours, and sweet as sacramental wine to dying lips, it is when life's fitful fever is ebbing to its close to pillow one's aching head on some fond, wifely bosom and breathe his life out gently there. "And in duty bound to attain the possibility of compassing such a measureless benediction, petitioner will pray without ceasing, in accents as loud and earnest as ever issued from celiba tarian lips."

A TreatiseNEW on International LAW BOOKS. Public Law. By Hannis Taylor, LL.D., Late Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to Spain. Chicago : Callaghan and Company. 1901. $6. (lxxvi + 913. pp.) From the establishment of our government until the present generation the United States has consciously pursued a systematic and traditional policy of abstention from the foreign affairs of the old world. The first President advised his countrymen to keep free from " en tangling alliances," and himself furnished an example in very trying circumstances which has been followed as an article of faith by his im mediate successors. That necessity had as much to do with the policy as choice is evidenced by the frequent intervention of our government in the affairs of the Central and South American Republics — a policy due to a generous desire to protect them, in which, however, enlightened self-interest was intermingled with Pan-American philanthropy. But the necessity that dictated isolation, has passed and with it the policy of isolation, for since the war for the preservation of the Union our relations with Europe have grown more intimate and complicated. Within the last four years we have waged, whether rightly or wrongly, a war with Spain; our soldiers have for the first time since the recognition of our Independence made common cause with Europe and fought shoulder to shoulder with Europeans and Asiatics, and at the present day we are en gaged in putting down resistance to our author ity in the Philippines. We are therefore deeply and rightly interested in foreign affairs, and a familiarity with inter national law by which the. foreign relations of nations are supposed to be determined has become a matter of prime moment. The subject has always attracted our lawyers, statesmen and scholars and its study and mastery is now more than ever of practical importance to a nation peculiarly open to practicality. Our situation has materially changed and it is but natural that our ideas if not our ideals should change, and our conceptions of inter national law have undergone essential modifica tion. " During the last fifty years," says Dr. Taylor, "international law, as a living and grow ing organism, has passed through a more marked