“The Law of Divorce, like all our laws, is made without fear or favour, for the protection and safety of us all; it is founded in justice and equity, that grievances may be redressed, and all who are wrong may have their remedy. It does not concern itself whether a man is rich or poor, but administers its simple principles, requiring those who are not destitute to pay for their decrees at a price that is the same for all, whatever their means may be; requiring those who are destitute to pay for their decrees at a price beyond their means. “I seem to hear you asking: ‘Could I not have been granted a remedy at a price proportioned to my means? Must I, and every working man whose wife leaves him as mine did, to drink in public houses, and walk the streets at night, be condemned for ever after to live alone, or to live in immorality?’ “The answer is a simple one: ‘If all the clerks and working men, and all those wives of clerks and working men--to whom, like you, divorce was due by almost general consent, and was indeed by almost general consent deemed of a desperate importance--were enabled to obtain it at a price within their means, several thousand more divorces would each year be granted in this country. This would have a disastrous effect upon the statistics of the marriage tie. Public Opinion, formed, you must remember, exclusively amongst your betters (for on such subjects working men are, and always have been, dumb), formed exclusively by such as can afford to pay for their decrees--this great Public Opinion would feel that a backward step was being taken on the path of moral rectitude. It would feel that, in granting what you, the People, in your dumbness and short sight might be tempted to think was common justice, it would be sacrificing the substance of morals to the shadow. The immorality to which you and your like under the present law are, and ever will be, forced, need never lie open to the light of day, never become a matter of statistics, and offend the Public Eye. What is not a matter of statistics can do no damage to the country’s morals or the country’s name. Public Opinion is itself secure in the enjoyment of the rights and privileges granted by the law, and it has decided by a simple sacrifice to conserve the moral fame of all. There must--it reasons--be a sacrifice; then let us sacrifice those without the means to pay! It is an accident that they, in their thousands, are not included in ourselves; some must suffer that we may all be moral!’