Alas! I know not if I sin; In vain I wrestle with my woe. In vain I strive from grief to win That loftier love he sought to know. Mine is a woman's love alone-- A woman's heart that wildly cries, "Oh! give me--give me back my own, Or lay me where my soldier lies!" D. A. C. ------ {101} ORIGINAL. DIVORCE LEGISLATION IN CONNECTICUT. [Footnote 22] [Footnote 22: Divorce legislation in Connecticut. By Rev. H. Loomis, Jr., North Manchester, Conn. article in the new England, for July, 1865.] The deadly and destructive epidemic of divorce legislation has crept through our social system with such stealthy and noiseless advances, and the Catholic community is so completely free from its contagion, that we were startled at the facts displayed in the able article which has suggested our present comments. Connecticut, it appears, stands pre-eminent among the states for the facility and frequency of divorce. Mr. Loomis says "that the name of Connecticut has become a name of reproach among her sister states, with a shameful notoriety surpassed by only one state in the Union." Nevertheless, many, if not most of the other states, are entitled to a fair share in the same reproach, having admitted the same false and ruinous principle into their legislation. We confine our remarks therefore to Connecticut, merely because it is a sample of the state of things generally existing, and because we are furnished with the authentic statements which are our necessary data by the principal periodical published in that state. These statements are, briefly, that divorces are granted by the Superior Courts, under the statutes of the Legislature, _a vinculo matrimonii_, leaving both parties free to marry again, for the following causes: 1. Adultery; 2. Desertion; 3. Habitual Intemperance; 4. Intolerable Cruelty; 5. Imprisonment for Life; 6. Infamous Crime; 7. "_Any such misconduct as permanently destroys the happiness of the petitioner and defeats the purposes of the marriage relation._" Moreover, that within the last fifteen years 4,000 divorces have been granted, of one for every twenty families. To this we add the further statement that, more than one-fifth of the population being Catholics, who never ask for these divorces, the proportion is increased to one married couple out of every sixteen Protestant families. These are the demonstrated facts in the case. And, in addition, we have the testimony of Mr. Loomis, published with the sanction of the editor of the New Englander, that the courts despatch these divorce cases with the most shameful levity and haste, in many cases without any due notice having been given to the respondent, and without any close examination of witnesses. Mr. Loomis says: