“Now, sir, whatever other people may think of this application, I take a bold stand, regardless whose corns or bunions I tread upon, so long as I put my foot down where it belongs. We have too many snorers among us. They are in our places of amusement, introducing groans and thunder where none were intended in the play. We find them in our places of worship, breaking forth in the midst of the pastor’s prayer, or while he is picturing to the congregation the wreck of ages and the crash of worlds. I maintain that this application is a righteous one; that it is a shot in the right direction, which will in all likelihood eventually bring down the game; and were I a judge invested with power to decide a peculiar case of this kind, I would show no hesitation, but grant the plaintiff her natural and very reasonable request more readily than if the grounds on which she sued for a separation were drunkenness or desertion. “The absurdity of an irascible wife seeking a divorce from a husband because he indulges too freely in the flowing bowl must be apparent to all. She rushes into the crowded court room, and, figuratively speaking, catches the astonished justice by the ear, as Joab in the extremity of his distress laid hold upon the horns of the altar, and requests him to sever the chafing bonds with his legal shears. Again: what a pitiable lack of discretion that woman exhibits who appeals to the court merely because her husband deserts her, leaving her to pursue the even tenor of her way. Why, in nine cases out of ten this is a ‘consummation devoutly to be wished;’ she is left untrammeled, and has no husband to support. “I will not allude to the many other failings which wreck the home and put out the cheerful light of many a hearthstone. “But, sir, it is with no ordinary thrill of pride that I espouse the cause of the woman who seeks a divorce from a snoring husband. I say, and I may remark that I say it boldly, that I rejoice it was reserved for me to raise my voice in her defence. I hold that a man who with malice aforethought takes from her peaceful home a tender and confiding maiden without first informing her of his trouble, commits a grave and unpardonable crime. The dogs of justice should be loosened at his heels to hound him from Puget’s Sound to Passamaquoddy Bay. He should be made to repent his villainous act. Think how the tender nerves of a sensitive creature must be shocked on being awakened by such an outburst. Picture to yourself her husband, not breathing her name in words of love, but lying flat on his back, and snoring with the vehemence of a stranded porpoise.