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THE AMERICAN SILVER BILL.

A COURT TORCH-LIGHT DANCE.

OUR MILITARi RESOURCES Itf-IWDIA*/

OFFICIAL CORRESPONDENCE.

.,"A FIGHT AT ODESSA.

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n ITHE LAW AFFECTING INSANE…

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, DEAN STANLEY ON THE POPES…

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A ROMANCE m JteEAh LIFE.

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A COSTLY SOLDIER.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

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ENGLAND'S FIELD ARMY..

A PLEA FOR "BREACH OF PROMISE."

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A PLEA FOR "BREACH OF PROMISE." A correspondent writes as follows in the Timet: In the overpowering excitement at present prevailing both abroad and at home of Russian a Turk, the 'comparatively peaceful action of "JliamJU of Pro- mise/ as mooted by Mr. 'HeweheH's bill, meets bat scanty attention. A word may, however, find place in favour of the time-honoured process the honour* able member for Durham would fain see entirely abolished. He views the question from a high stand- point of delicacy and disinterestedness, and apparently forgets that legidation is not alone for the upper-ten, but also for the masses. True that no woman of refinement could under any provocation wish to seek a salve for wounded affec- tions in what is certainly a low kind of revenge on a slippery lover. But it is equally true that our entire female population can by no means lay etaims to a niceness of feeling which Would prevent its having occasional recourse (with a general healthy effect for the community) to a remedy provided for its comparative safety from the trifler and seducer. In the lower middle elass, and in yet humbler grades, women, in losing the law of "Breach of Promise*" would find a safety barrier thrown down which would leave them exposed, all helpless and undefended, to the mercy of any man who, studying only self-gratifi- cation, might choose to play the lover. There, wowld be nothing to hinder an unprincipled fellow from con- tracting an engagement and making solemn-promines of marriage he had no intention of keeping. Frequently, also—for human nature is more often weak; than it ia wicked—men who would shrink with a holy horror from facing the chance of an actiou for "breach" would (that terror once withdrawn) yield to temptation, and without a precise intention > to deceive offer marriage, trusting to the chapter of accidents that they might perhaps fulfil their word. Of the thousands of gentlemen who lodge baehetof fashion in London, how many would see the blandishments of their landlady's comely daughters and nieces in an amatory light, secure in the know- ledge that, should the undesirabiKty of the connection, prove too strong for their affection, it was open to them at any time to desert the woman, who was powerleseto punish? Most women prefer the eBent agony of a blighted life to any comfort to be obtained from publicity in the newspapers. Not a hundredth part ef the cases that possess every requisite find their way into the law courts; but we may believe that the small per cent. which do act as awholesome deterrent to the many.

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