VOLUME VIII SLICE V Dinard to Dodsworth (continued 7)

The act (sec. 32) provided, in case of dissolution, for maintenance of the wife by the husband on principles similar to those recognized by the ecclesiastical courts, and (sec. 45) for the settlement of the property of a guilty wife on her husband or children; but this enactment was imperfect, as provision was made only for a settlement and not for payment of an allowance, and none was made for altering settlements made in view or in consequence of a marriage. The act (sec. 35) provides also in all divorce proceedings, and also in those of nullity, for provision for the custody, maintenance and education of children by the court: provisions of great value, which were unfortunately for some time limited by an erroneous view of the court that the age of the children to which such provisions applied should be considered limited to sixteen. The act of 1857 also transferred to the new court the powers exercised by the common law courts in the action for criminal conversation. It was made obligatory to join an alleged adulterer in the suit, and damages (sec. 33) might be claimed against him, and he might be ordered to pay the cost of the proceedings (sec. 34), the extent depending upon the circumstances of each case.1

The act of 1857 in one respect went beyond a transfer of the powers exercised by the ecclesiastical courts or the legislature. It provided (sec. 21) that a wife deserted by her husband might apply to a magistrate in petty sessions and obtain an order which had the effect of protecting her earnings and property, and during the currency of such order of protection a wife was to be in the same position as if she had obtained an order for judicial separation. The effect of this section appears to have been small; but the Summary Jurisdiction (Married Women) Act 1895 has afforded a cheap and speedy remedy to all classes.

The framers of the act of 1857 were careful to avoid offending the scruples of clergymen who disapproved of the complete dissolution of marriage by a lay court. It was provided (secs. 57 and 58) that no clergyman should be compelled to solemnize the marriage of any person whose former marriage had been dissolved on the ground of his or her adultery, but should permit any other clergyman to solemnize the marriage in any church or chapel in which the parties were entitled to be married. It is to be feared that this concession, ample as it appears, has not allayed conscientious objections, which are perhaps from their nature insuperable. The act made no provision as to the name to be borne by a wife after a divorce; and this omission led to litigation in the case of a peer’s wife, in Cowley v. Cowley, in which Lady Cowley was allowed to retain her status.

Modifications of the Act of 1857.—Subsequent legislation has made good many of the defects of the act of 1857. In 1859 power was given to the court, after a decree of dissolution or of nullity of marriage, to inquire into the existence of ante- and post-nuptial settlements, and to make orders with respect to the property settled either for the benefit of children of the marriage or their parents; and a subsequent act (41 & 42 Vict. c. 19, s. 3) removed a doubt which was entertained whether these powers could be exercised if there were no children of the marriage. In 1860 a very important change was made, having for its object a practical mode of preventing divorces in cases of connivance and collusion or of misconduct of the petitioner. It was provided that a claim of dissolution (a provision afterwards extended to decrees of nullity) should in the first instance be a decree nisi, which should not be made absolute until the expiration of a period then fixed at not less than three, but by subsequent legislation enlarged to not less than six, months. During the interval which elapsed between the decree nisi and such decree being made absolute, power was given to any person to intervene in the suit and show cause why the decree should not be made absolute, by reason of the same having been obtained by collusion, or by reason of material facts not brought before the court; and it was also provided that, at any time before the decree was made absolute, the queen’s proctor, if led to suspect that the parties were acting in collusion for the purpose of obtaining a divorce contrary to the justice of the case, might under the direction of the attorney-general intervene and allege such case of collusion. This enactment (extended in the year 1873 to suits for nullity) was ill drawn and unskilfully conceived. The power given to any person whomsoever to intervene is no doubt too wide, and practically has had little or no useful effect as employed by friends or enemies of parties to a suit. The limitation in terms of the express power of the queen’s proctor to intervene in cases of collusion was undoubtedly too narrow. But the queen’s proctor, or the official by whom that officer was afterwards represented, has in practice availed himself of the general authority given to any person to show cause why a decree nisi should not be made absolute, and has thus been enabled to render such important service to the administration of justice that it is difficult to imagine the due execution of the law of divorce by a court without such assistance. By the Matrimonial Causes Act 1866 power was given to the court to order an allowance to be paid by a guilty husband to a wife on a dissolution of marriage. This act also can hardly be considered to have been drawn with sufficient care, inasmuch as while it provides that if the husband’s means diminish, the allowance may be diminished or suspended, it makes no corresponding provision for increase of the allowance if the husband’s means increase; nor, apparently, does it permit of an allowance in addition to, but only in substitution for, a settlement. The act makes no provision for allowance to a guilty wife, and it certainly is a serious defect that the power to grant an allowance does not extend to cases of nullity. In 1868 an appeal to the House of Lords was given in cases of decree for dissolution or nullity of marriage.

The great changes effected by the Judicature Acts included the court for divorce and matrimonial causes. Under their operation a division of the high court of justice was constituted, under the designation of the probate division and admiralty division, to which was assigned that class of legal administration governed mainly by the principles and practice of the canon and civil law. The division consists of a president, and a justice of the high court, with registrars representing each branch of the jurisdiction. Appeals lie to the court of appeal, and thence to the House of Lords.

In 1884 the legislature interfered to prevent imprisonment being the result of disobedience to an order for restitution of conjugal rights. That mode of enforcing the order of the court was abolished, and the matter was left to a proper adjustment of the pecuniary relations of the husband and wife; and a respondent disobeying such an order was held to be guilty of desertion without reasonable cause, such desertion having further given to it a similar effect to that assigned to desertion for two years or upwards. The effect of this provision has been that the suit for restitution of conjugal rights is most frequently brought for the purpose of shortening the time within which a wife can obtain a decree for dissolution of marriage.

Proceedings in the divorce court have shown the improvement in the law of evidence which has been effected with regard to other legal proceedings. The act of 1857 made an inroad on the former law, which prohibited evidence being given by parties interested in the proceedings, by allowing a petitioner (sec. 43) to be called and examined by order of the court, absolving such petitioner, however, from the necessity of answering any question tending to show that he or she had been guilty of adultery. In the next year power was given to the court to dismiss any person, with whom a party to the suit was alleged to have committed adultery, from the suit if there should not appear to be sufficient evidence against him or her, the object being to allow such person to give evidence; and in 1859 it was provided that, on a petition by a wife for a divorce on the grounds of cruelty or desertion with adultery, the husband and wife could be competent and compellable witnesses as to the cruelty or desertion. A few years later, however, in 1869, the subject was finally dealt with by repealing all previous rules which limited the powers to give evidence on questions of adultery with the safeguard that no witness in any proceeding can be asked or bound to answer any question tending to show that he or she has been guilty of adultery, unless in the same proceeding such witness shall have given evidence in disproof of his or her alleged adultery. It has been held that the principles of these enactments apply to interrogatories as well as to evidence given in court.

It is a most remarkable omission in the act of 1857, especially when we remember the high legal authority from whom it proceeded, that the act nowhere defines the class of persons with regard to whom the jurisdiction of the court should be exercised. This omission has given rise to a misapprehension of the law which, though now set at rest, prevailed for a considerable period, and has undoubtedly led to the granting of divorce in several cases in which it could not legally be given. It was supposed that the court could grant a dissolution of marriage to all persons who had anything more than a casual and fleeting residence within the jurisdiction of the court; and this view, although its correctness was doubted by Lord Penzance, the judge of the divorce court, was upheld by a majority of the judges of the court of appeal in the case of Niboyet v. Niboyet (4 P. D. 1). It was supposed that such residence gave what was termed a matrimonial domicile. But this view was undoubtedly erroneous as regards dissolution of marriage, although probably correct as regards judicial separation, and the true view is no doubt that indicated with great learning and ability by Lord Watson in a judgment given by him in the privy council in the case of Le Mesurier v. Le Mesurier (1895, App. Cas. 517), that the only true test of jurisdiction for a decree of divorce altering the status of the parties to a marriage is to be found in the domicile of the spouses—that is to say, of the husband, as the domicile of a wife follows that of her husband—at the time of the divorce. Domicile means a person’s permanent home, the place at which he resides with no intention of making his home elsewhere, and, if he leaves it, with the intention of returning to it.

It is now also clearly recognized as the law of England that the English courts will not recognize a divorce purporting to be made by a foreign tribunal with regard to persons domiciled in England. For a considerable time doubt appears to have clouded the law on this subject. In a famous case known as Lolley’s case, decided in 1812, the judges of England (the point arose in connexion with a criminal charge) unanimously held “that no sentence or act of any foreign country or any state could dissolve an English marriage a vinculo matrimonii for grounds on which it was not liable to be dissolved a vinculo matrimonii in England.” This case has been frequently understood as deciding that a marriage celebrated in England cannot be dissolved elsewhere, and on this point the courts of Scotland differ from the view supposed to be taken by the English judges. But the matter has been fully explained in one of the most masterly of Lord Hannen’s judgments (Harvey v. Fairnie, 5. P. D. 154), afterwards upheld by the House of Lords in 1882 (8 App. Cas. 43); and it is now clear that while the parties are domiciled in this country no decree of any foreign court dissolving their marriage will be recognized here, unless it proceed on the grounds on which a divorce may be obtained in this country, and even the exception just mentioned appears to rest rather on reasoning and principle than on the authority of any decided case. This principle received the highest sanction in the prosecution of Earl Russell for bigamy before the House of Lords (1901), in which it was held that, where a divorce had been refused him in England, an American divorce would not relieve a man from the guilt of marrying again.

Summary Proceedings for Separation.—The legislature has sought to extend the relief afforded by the courts in matrimonial causes by a procedure fairly to be considered within the reach of all classes. In 1895 an act was passed which re-enacted in an improved form the provisions of an act of 1878 of similar effect. By the act of 1895 power was given to a married woman whose husband (1) has been guilty of an aggravated assault upon her within the Offences against the Person Act 1861, or (2) convicted on indictment of an assault on her and sentenced to pay a fine of more than £5 or to imprisonment for more than two months, or (3) shall have deserted her, or (4) been guilty of persistent cruelty to her or wilful neglect to maintain her or her infant children, and by such cruelty or neglect shall have caused her to leave and live apart from him, to apply to a court of summary jurisdiction and to obtain an order containing all or any of the following provisions:—(1) that the applicant be not forced to cohabit with her husband, (2) that the applicant have the custody of any children under sixteen years of age, (3) that the husband pay to her an allowance not exceeding £2 a week. The act provides that no married woman guilty of adultery should be granted relief, but with the very important proviso, altering as it does the rule of the common law, that the husband has not conduced or connived at, or by wilful neglect or misconduct conduced to, such adultery. The provisions of this act2 have been largely put in force, and no doubt to the great advantage of the poorer classes of the community. It will be observed that the act is unilateral, and affords no relief to a husband against a wife; and the complaint is often heard that no misconduct of the wife, except adultery, relieves the husband from the necessity of maintaining her and allowing her to share his home, unless he can obtain access to the high court.3

Separation Deeds.—Although nothing in the development of the law of divorce has tended to give to married persons the right absolutely to dissolve their marriage by consent, and, on the contrary, any such agreement would be held to be strong evidence of collusion, the view of the Church expressed in the ecclesiastical law has been entirely departed from as regards agreements for separation. Such agreements were embodied in deeds, and usually contained mutual covenants not to sue in the ecclesiastical courts for restitution of conjugal rights. The ecclesiastical courts, however, wholly disregarded such agreements, and considered them as affording no answer to a suit for restitution of conjugal rights. For a considerable period the court of chancery refused to enforce the covenant in such deeds by restraining the parties from proceeding to the ecclesiastical courts. But at last a memorable judgment of Lord Westbury (1861) asserted the right (Hunt v. Hunt, 4 De G. F. & J. 221; see also Marshall v. Marshall, 5 P. D. 19) of the court of chancery to maintain the claim of good faith in this as in other cases, and restrained a petitioner from suing in the ecclesiastical court contrary to his covenant. Thereafter these deeds became common, and no doubt often afford a solution of matrimonial difficulties of very great value. When the courts of the country became united under the Judicature Acts, it became practicable to set up in the divorce division a separation deed in answer to a suit for restitution of conjugal rights without the necessity of recourse to any other tribunal.

Statistics.—The statistics of divorce in England have for some years been regularly published in the volumes of judicial statistics published annually by the Home Office.

The number of petitions for divorce (including in the term both divorce a mensa et thoro and divorce a vinculo) for the years from 1858 to 1905 inclusive are as follows:—

1858 326 1874 469 1890 644

1859 291 1875 451 1891 632

1860 272 1876 536 1892 629

1861 236 1877 551 1893 645

1862 248 1878 632 1894 652

1863 298 1879 555 1895 683

1864 297 1880 615 1896 772

1865 284 1881 589 1897 781

1866 279 1882 481 1898 750

1867 294 1883 561 1899 727

1868 303 1884 647 1900 698

1869 351 1885 541 1901 848

1870 351 1886 708 1902 987

1871 384 1887 662 1903 914

1872 374 1888 680 1904 822

1873 416 1889 654 1905 844

It is probably impossible to account for the variations which the above table discloses. It was no doubt natural that the year immediately succeeding the passing of the act which originated facilities for divorces a vinculo should exhibit a larger number of divorces than its successors for a considerable period. But there does not appear to be any adequate cause for the comparative increase which seems to have prevailed in the decade between 1878 and 1888, unless it be found in the increase of marriages which culminated in 1873 and 1883, falling after each of those years. The number of marriages again rose high in 1891 and 1892, and this may account for the increased number of divorces in 1896 and the following years. But it may certainly be said with confidence that as compared with the growth of population the number of divorces in England has shown no alarming increase.

The total number of petitions in matrimonial causes presented by husbands exceed those presented by wives, but in no marked degree. This excess would seem to be due to the fact that the larger number of petitions for dissolution presented by husbands, owing no doubt to the difference in the law affecting the two sexes, is not entirely counterbalanced by the much larger number of petitions for judicial separation presented by wives. The following figures for various years may be taken as typical:—

1895 1896 1897 1898 1899 1905

Petitions for Dissolution—

Presented by husbands 353 393 414 401 383 429

Presented by wives 220 280 269 243 262 23

Petitions for Judicial Separation—

Presented by husbands 4 3 2 4 4 5

Presented by wives 106 96 96 102 78 87

Totals—

Presented by husbands 357 396 416 405 387 434

Presented by wives 326 376 365 345 340 410

Speaking generally, it may be said that about 70% of the petitions presented are successful and result in decrees. This percentage has a tendency, however, to rise.

Attempts have been made to ascertain the classes which supply the petitioners for divorce, but this cannot be done with such certainty as to warrant any but the most general conclusions. It may, however, safely be said that while all classes, professions and occupations are represented, it is certainly not those highest in the scale that are the largest contributors. The principles of the act of 1857 have beyond question been justified by the relief required by and afforded to the general community.

Other European Countries

We may now turn to the law of divorce as administered in the other countries of the modern world. On the main question whether marriage is to be considered indissoluble they will be found to range themselves on one side or the other according to the influence upon them of the Church of Rome and its canon law.

In Scotland it has long been the law that marriage can be dissolved at the instance of either party by judicial sentence on the grounds of adultery or of desertion, termed non-adherence, and the spouses could in such case remarry, except with the paramour,—at all events if the paramour was named in the decree (and the name is sometimes omitted for that reason). A divorce a mensa et thoro could also be granted for cruelty. By the Court of Session Act 1830, the jurisdiction in divorce was transferred from a body of commissaries to the court of session.

By the law of Holland complete divorce could be granted by judicial sentence on the grounds of adultery or of wilful and malicious desertion, to which were added unnatural offences and imprisonment for life, and such divorce gave the power of remarriage, except with the person with whom adultery was proved to have been committed, but there would seem to be a doubt whether this power extended to the guilty party (Voet, De divortiis, lit. 24, tit. 2). Divorce a mensa et thoro could be granted on the grounds allowed by the canon law.

The Code of Prussia of 1794 contained elaborate provisions which gave great facility of divorce. A complete divorce could be obtained by judicial sentence for the following causes:—(1) Adultery or unnatural offences; and adultery by a husband formed no bar to his obtaining a divorce against his wife for adultery; and even an illicit intimacy, from which a presumption of adultery might arise, was held sufficient for a divorce. (2) Wilful desertion. (3) Obstinate refusal of the rights of marriage, which was considered as equivalent to desertion. (4) Incapacity to perform the duties of marriage, even if arising subsequent to the marriage; and the same effect was assigned to other incurable bodily defects that excited disgust and horror. (5) Lunacy, if after a year there was no reasonable hope of recovery. (6) An attempt on the life of one spouse by the other, or gross and unlawful attack on the honour or personal liberty. (7) Incompatibility of temper and quarrelsome disposition, if rising to the height of endangering life or health. (8) Opprobrious crime for which either spouse has suffered imprisonment, or a knowingly false accusation of such crime by one spouse of the other. (9) If either spouse by unlawful transactions endangers the life, honour, office or trade of the other, or commences an ignominious employment. (10) Change of religion. In addition to these causes, marriages, when there were no children, could be dissolved by mutual consent if there be no reason to suspect levity, precipitation or compulsion; and a judge had also power to dissolve a marriage in cases in which a strongly rooted dislike appeared to him to exist. In all cases of divorce, but sometimes subject to the necessity of obtaining a licence, remarriage was permissible (see Burge, Commentaries on Colonial and Foreign Law, vol. i. 649).

Before 1876 only a divorce a vinculo could be obtained in some of the German states, especially if the petitioner were a Roman Catholic. The only relief afforded was a “perpetual separation.” By the Personal Status Act 1875 perpetual separation orders were abolished and divorce decrees allowed in cases where the petitioners would, under the former law, have been entitled to a perpetual separation order. However, two Drafting Commissions under the act declined to alter the new rule, but under pressure from the Roman Catholic party the Reichstag passed a law introducing a modified separation order, termed “dissolution of the conjugal community” (Aufhebung der ehelichen Gemeinschaft). This order can be converted into a dissolution of the marriage at the option of either party. Under the Civil Code of 1900 a petitioner can obtain a divorce or judicial separation on “absolute” or “relative” grounds. In the former case if the facts are established the petitioner is entitled to the relief prayed for; in the latter case, it is left to judicial discretion. The absolute grounds are adultery, bigamy, sodomy, an attempt against the petitioner’s life or wilful desertion. The relative grounds are (a) such grave breach of marital duty or dishonourable or immoral conduct as would disturb the marital relation to such an extent that the marriage could not reasonably be expected to continue; (b) insanity, continued for more than three years during the marriage, and of so severe a nature that intellectual community between the parties has ceased and is not likely to be re-established. A divorced wife, if not exclusively the guilty party, may retain her husband’s name; but if exclusively guilty, her former husband may compel her to resume her maiden name.

By the law of Denmark, according to the Code of King Christian the Fifth, complete divorce could be obtained for incest; for leprosy, whether contracted before or after marriage; for transportation for crime or flight from justice, after three years, though not for crime itself; and for exile not arising from crime, after seven years.

In Sweden complete divorce is granted by judicial sentence for adultery, and in Russia for that cause and also for incompatibility of temper (Ayliffe, Par. 49). On the other hand, in Spain marriage is indissoluble, and the ecclesiastical courts have retained their exclusive cognizance of matrimonial causes. In Italy certain articles of the Civil Code deal with separation, voluntary and judicial, but divorce is not allowed in any form.

In France the law of divorce has had a chequered history. Before the Revolution the Roman canon law prevailed, marriage was considered indissoluble, and only divorce a mensa et thoro, known as la séparation d’habitation, was permitted; though it would appear that in the earliest age of the monarchy divorce a vinculo matrimonii was allowed. La séparation d’habitation was granted at the instance of a wife for cruelty by her husband or false accusation of a capital crime, or for habitual treatment with contempt before the inmates of the house; but a wife could not obtain a separation for adultery by her husband, although he had his remedy in case of adultery by his wife. In every case the sentence of a judicial tribunal, which took precautions against collusion, was necessary. But the Revolution may be said to have swept away marriage among the institutions which it overwhelmed, and by the law of the 20th of September 1792 so great facility was given for divorce a vinculo matrimonii as practically to terminate the obligations of marriage. A reaction came with the Code Napoléon, yet even under that system of law divorce remained comparatively easy. Mutual consent, expressed in the manner and continued for a period specified by the law, was cause for a divorce (the principle of the Roman law being adopted on this point), but such consent could not take place unless the husband was twenty-five years of age and the wife twenty-one, unless they had been married for two years, nor after twenty years of marriage, nor after the wife had completed her forty-fifth year; and further, the approval of the parents of both parties was required. In case of divorce by consent, the law required that a proper agreement should be made for the maintenance of the wife and the custody of the children. A husband could obtain a divorce a vinculo matrimonii for adultery, but the wife had no such power unless the husband had brought his mistress to the home. Both husband and wife could claim divorce on the ground of outrage, or grievous bodily injury, or condemnation for an infamous crime. If the divorce was for adultery, the erring party could not marry the partner of his or her guilt. A divorce a mensa et thoro could be obtained on the same grounds as a divorce a vinculo, but not by mutual consent; and if the divorce a mensa et thoro continued in force for three years, the defendant party could claim a divorce a vinculo. On the restoration of royalty in 1816 divorce a vinculo was abolished, and pending suits for divorce a vinculo were converted into suits for separation only.

Divorce in France, after the repeal of the provisions respecting it in the Code Napoléon in 1816, was re-enacted by a law of the 27th of July 1884, the provisions of which were simplified by laws of 1886 and 1907. But a wide departure was made by these laws from the terms of the Code Napoléon. Divorce by consent disappeared, and the following became the causes for which divorce was allowed: (1) Adultery by either party to the marriage at the suit of the other, without, in the case of adultery by the husband, the aggravation of introduction of the concubine into the home required by the Code; (2) violence (excès) or cruelty (sévices); (3) injures graves; and (4) peine afflictive et infamante. Excès is defined by Locié as “a generic expression comprising all acts tending to compromise the safety of the person, without distinction as to their object or motive, premeditation as well as furious anger, attempts upon life as well as serious woundings.” Sévices are acts of ill-treatment less grave in character, which, while not endangering life, render existence in common intolerable (Kelly’s French Law of Marriage, p. 122). Injures graves, as to which the courts have considered themselves entitled to exercise a wide discretion, have been defined as acts, writings or words which reflect upon the honour or the reputation of the party against whom they are directed. The courts have held that retraction at the trial does not relieve the party from the consequences of an injure grave, and that publicity is an aggravating but not a necessary element. A letter from one spouse to the other may constitute an injure and the courts have further held themselves at liberty to consider letters written after divorce proceedings have been commenced. Injures graves have also been considered to include material injuries, and among these have been classed habitual and groundless refusal of matrimonial rights, communication of disease and refusal to consent to a religious ceremony of marriage. Habitual but not occasional drunkenness has also been held to fall within the definition of an injure grave. Peine afflictive et infamante signifies a legal punishment involving corporal confinement and moral degradation.4

In addition to its recognition of full divorce, the French law recognizes separation of two kinds, one séparation de biens and the other séparation de corps. The effect of séparation de biens is merely to put an end to the community of goods between the spouses. It necessarily follows, but may be decreed independently of séparation de corps. The grounds of séparation de corps are the same as those for a divorce; and if a séparation de corps has existed for three years, it may be turned into a divorce upon the application of either party to the court.

Until 1893 a wife séparée de corps obtained only the capacity attaching to a concomitant séparation de biens; that is to say, she recovered the enjoyment and management of her separate property, but could not deal with real property, nor take legal proceedings, without the sanction of her husband or of the court. But by a law of the 6th of February 1893 a wife séparée de corps obtains “the full exercise of her civil capacity, so that she shall not need to resort to the authority of her husband or of the court.” In case of reconciliation, the wife returns to the limited capacity of a wife séparée de biens, and after the prescribed notification of such change of status it becomes binding on third persons.

The provisions of French law with regard to the custody of the children of a dissolved marriage, and with regard to property, do not differ materially from those prescribed by the English acts. The custody of children is given to the party who has obtained the divorce, unless the court, on the application of the family, or the ministère public, consider it better, in the interests of the children, that custody should be given to the other party or a third person; but in every case the right of both father and mother to supervise the maintenance and education of the children, and their liability to contribute to their support, are continued.

The law in France as to property on a divorce has been accurately stated as follows:—

“Divorce in France effects a dissolution of the matrimonial régime of property as well as of the marriage itself. The decree appoints a notary, who is charged with the settlement of the pecuniary interests of the parties. By a stereotyped form of procedure the appointment is made invariably for the purpose of liquidating la communauté ayant existé entre les époux, irrespective of whether the régime really was that of community or another. In the case of aliens, therefore, married under the rule of separate property, it is necessary carefully to set this out in the notarial deed of liquidation, in order to defeat the presumption which might be raised by the wording of the decree that a community really did exist. The party against whom the divorce has been pronounced loses the benefit of all settlements made upon him or her by the other party, either by the marriage contract or since the marriage. On the other hand, the party in whose favour the divorce has been pronounced preserves the benefit of all settlements made in his or her favour by the unsuccessful party. If no such settlements were made, or if those made appear inadequate to ensure the subsistence of the successful party, the court may grant him or her permanent alimony out of the property of the other party, not to exceed one-third of the income, and revocable in case it ceases to be necessary” (Kelly, p. 130).

On a divorce both parties are at liberty to remarry. The husband could remarry at once; but the wife (art. 296 of the Code) was only allowed to remarry after an interval of ten months. By the act of 1907, this article was abolished, and the wife allowed to remarry as soon as the judgment or decree granting the divorce has been entered, providing 300 days have elapsed since the first judgment was pronounced. A divorced husband may remarry his divorced wife, but if he does so, he cannot be again divorced, except on the ground of a sentence to a peine afflictive et infamante passed on one of them since their remarriage. There is, however, this limitation on the power of remarriage of divorced persons, that the party to the marriage against whom the decree has been pronounced is not allowed to marry the person with whom his or her guilt has been established. Such person, however, has no such rights as are recognized in him or her according to English law, and cannot take any part in the proceedings. But his or her name is referred to in the proceedings only by an initial; and French law goes even further in the avoidance of publicity, inasmuch as the publication of divorce proceedings in the press is forbidden, under heavy penalties.

By a law of the 6th of February 1893 French jurisprudence, more complete at least, and perhaps wiser, than English, dealt with a matter previously in controversy, and decided that after a divorce the wife shall resume her maiden name, and may not continue to use the name of her divorced husband; nor may the husband, for business or other purposes, continue to use the name of his wife.

By the law of 1886 the special procedure in divorce previously in force under the Code and under the law of 1884 was abolished, and it was provided that matrimonial causes should be tried according to the ordinary rules of procedure. The action therefore, when brought, follows the methods of procedure common to other civil proceedings. But there still remain certain necessary preliminaries to an action of divorce. A petition must be presented by a petitioner in person to the president of the court sitting in chambers, with the object of a reconciliation being effected. This is known as the première comparation. If the petitioner still determines to proceed, there follows the seconde comparation, on which occasion both parties appear before the president. If the president fails to effect a reconciliation, he makes an order permitting the petitioner to proceed, and deals with the matters necessary to be dealt with pendente lite, such matters being (1) separate residence, (2) alimony, (3) possession of personal effects, (4) custody of children. As regards residence, the wife is compelled to adhere during the proceedings to the residence assigned to her, but no similar restriction is placed on the husband. Alimony pendente lite is in the discretion of the court, having regard to the means of the parties, and includes a proper provision for costs. As regards the custody of children, the Code and the law of 1884 gave it to the husband, unless the court otherwise orders, but the law of 1886 leaves the matter wholly in the discretion of the court.

There are certain technical rules of evidence on the trial of a divorce action. It is a general principle of the French law of evidence that documentary evidence is the best evidence, and oral testimony only secondary. In divorce cases adultery flagrante delicto can be proved by the official certificate of the commissary of police. Letters between the husband and wife are admissible in evidence. As to letters between the parties and third persons, the law, which has been doubtful, now appears to be that the wife may produce only such letters from third parties to her husband as have come into her possession accidentally, and without any ruse or artifice on her part; but the husband may put in evidence any letters written to or by his wife which he has obtained by any, short of criminal, means. If the documents put in evidence are not sufficient to satisfy the court, there follows an investigation by means of witnesses, termed an enquête. A schedule of allegations is drawn up, and a judge, termed a juge-commissaire, is specially appointed to conduct the inquiry. Relatives and servants, though not competent witnesses in ordinary civil actions, are so in divorce proceedings. Cross petitions may be entered; the substantiation of a cross petition, however, does not have the effect, in some cases given to it by English law, of barring a divorce, but a divorce may be, and often is, granted in favour of and against both parties pour torts réciproques. When a case comes on for trial, it is in the power of the court to order an adjournment for a period not exceeding six months, which is termed a temps d’épreuve, in order to afford an opportunity for reconciliation. It is said, however, that this power is seldom exercised. An appeal may be brought against a decree of divorce within two months; and a decree made on appeal is subject to revision by the court of cassation within two months. Both references to the court of appeal and the court of cassation operate as a stay of execution. A decree must, by the law of 1886, be transcribed on the register of marriages within two months from its date, and failing this transcription, the decree is void. The transcription must be made at the place of celebration of the marriage, or, if the parties are married abroad, at the place where the parties were last domiciled in France. If the parties, after having married abroad, return to France, it has been provided, by a circular of the Procureur de la République in 1887, that the transcription may be made at the place of their actual domicile at the time of action brought, a rule which has been held to apply to the divorce of aliens in France. The effect of transcription does not relate back to the date of the decree.

Opinions may differ as to the relative merits of the English and French law relating to divorce. But it cannot be denied that the French law presents a singularly complete and well-considered system, and one which, obviously with the English system in view, has endeavoured to graft on it provisions supplementing its omissions, and modifying certain of its terms in accordance with the light afforded by experience and the changed feelings of the modern world. The effect of the laws of 1884 and 1886 in France has been great. The act of 1907 dealing with divorce, coupled with that of the 21st of July of the same year dealing with marriage, may also be said to mark an epoch in the laws relating to women. During the five years from 1884 to 1888 the courts granted divorces in 21,064 cases, rejecting applications for divorce in 1524. In addition, there were 12,242 applications for judicial separation, of which 10,739 were granted. A distinguished French writer, the author of a work of singular completeness and accuracy on the judicial system of Great Britain has compared these figures with the corresponding result of the English act of 1857. His conclusion is expressed in these words: “On voit qu’en cinq années nos tribunaux out prononcé trois fois plus de divorces que la haute cour d’Angleterre n’en a prononcé en trente ans. Je n’insiste pas sur les conclusions morales à tirer de ce rapprochement” (Comte de Franqueville, Le Système judiciaire de la Grande-Bretagne, ii. p. 171). It is, however, practically impossible to compare the number of divorces in France and in England with exact justice, because, as will have been seen above, the causes of divorce in France materially exceed those recognized by English law; and the absence in France of any official performing the functions assigned to the king’s proctor in England cannot but have great influence on the number of applications for divorce, as well as on their results.

(St H.)

United States

According to American practice, divorce is the termination by proper legal authority, sometimes legislatively but usually judicially, of a marriage which up to the time of the decree was legal and binding. It is to be distinguished from a decree of nullity of marriage, which is simply a legal determination that no legal marriage has ever existed between the two parties. It is also to be distinguished from a decree of separation, which permits or commands the parties to live apart, but does not completely and for all purposes sever the marriage tie. The matrimonial law of England, as at the time of the declaration of independence, forms part of the common law of the United States. But as no ecclesiastical courts have ever existed there, the law must be considered to have been inoperative. There is no Federal jurisdiction in divorce, and it is a question for the law of each separate state; and though it is competent to Congress to authorize divorces in the Territories, still it appears that this subject like others is usually left to the territorial legislature. In the different states, and in England, divorces were at first granted by the legislatures, whether directly or by granting special authority to the tribunals to deal with particular cases. This practice fell into general disrepute, and by the constitution of some states such divorces are expressly prohibited.

Upon the subject of divorce in the United States, and, to some extent, in foreign countries, a careful investigation was made by the American Bureau of Labour, and its report covered the years 1867 to 1886; a further report for the period 1887 to 1906 has also been published by the Federal Census Bureau. The number of divorces was in 1886 over 25,000, and in 1906 was over 72,000, about double the number reported for that year from all the rest of the Christian world. As divorce presupposes a legal marriage, the amount of divorce, or the divorce-rate, is best stated as the ratio between the number of divorces decreed during a year and the number of subsisting marriages or married couples. The usual basis is 100,000 married couples. In 1898-1902 the divorce-rate was 200 divorces (400 people) to 100,000 married couples. This is equivalent to more than one divorce annually to each 1400 people. The several states differ in divorce-rate, from South Carolina, with no provision for legal divorce, to Montana and Washington, where the rate is two and a half times the average for the country. In general the rate is about the same in the North as in the South, but greater in the Central states than in the East, and in the Western than in the Central states; but to this rule the New England states, Louisiana, New Mexico and Arizona are exceptions. The New England states have a higher rate than their geographical position would lead one to expect, and the other three, owing doubtless, in part at least, to the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, have a lower rate than the states about them. The several state groups had in 1900 the following divorce-rates per 100,000: South Atlantic, 196; North Atlantic, 200; South Central, 558; North Central, 510; Western, 712. The divorce-rate in the United States increased rapidly and steadily in forty years from 27 in 1867 to 86 in 1906. But distinct tendencies are traceable in different regions. In the North Atlantic group the rate rose by 58%, in the North Central by 158%, in the Western by 223%, in the South Atlantic by 437%, and in the South Central by 685%. The great increase in the South was mainly due to the spread of divorce among the emancipated negroes. Each state determines for itself the causes for which divorce may be granted, and no general statement is therefore possible.

The ground pleaded for a divorce is seldom an index to the motives which caused the suit to be brought. This is determined by the character of the law rather than by the state of mind of the parties; and so far as the individuals are concerned, the ground alleged is thus a cloak rather than a clue or revelation. Still those causes which have been enacted into law by the various state legislatures do indicate the pleas which have been endorsed by the social judgment of the respective communities. In the United States exclusive of Alaska and the recent insular accessions there are forty-nine different jurisdictions in the matter of divorce. Six out of every seven allow divorce for desertion, adultery or cruelty; and of the 945,625 divorces reported with their causes during the twenty years 1887-1906 nearly 78% were granted for some one of these three causes, viz. 39% for desertion, 22% for adultery, and 16% for cruelty. Probably nearly 9% more were for some combination of these causes. Three other grounds for divorce are admitted as legal in many or most American states, viz. imprisonment in 39, habitual drunkenness in 38, and neglect to provide in 22. About 98% of American divorces are granted on some one or more of these six grounds. In general the legislation on the subject of the causes allowed for divorce is most restrictive in the states on the Atlantic coast, from New York to South Carolina inclusive, and is least so in the Western states. The slight expense of obtaining a divorce in many of the states, and the lack of publicity which is given to the suit, are also important reasons for the great number of decrees issued. The importance of the former consideration is reflected in the fact that the divorce-rate for the United States as a whole shows clearly, in its fluctuations, the influences of good and bad times. When times are good and the income of the working and industrial classes likely to be assured, the divorce-rate rises. In periods of industrial depression it falls, fluctuating thus in the same way and probably for the same reason that the marriage-rate in industrial communities fluctuates. In two-thirds of the divorce suits the wife is the plaintiff, and the proportion slightly increased in the forty years. In the Northern states the percentage issued to wives (1887-1906) was 71, while in the Southern states it was only 56. But where both parties desire a decree, and each has a legal ground to urge, a jury will usually listen more favourably to a woman’s suit.

Divorce is probably especially frequent among the native population of the United States, and among these probably more common in the city than in the country. This statement cannot be established absolutely, since statistics afford no means of distinguishing the native from the foreign-born applicants. It is, however, the most obvious reason for explaining the fact that, while in Europe the city divorce-rate is from three to five times as great as that of the surrounding country, the difference in the United States between the two regions is very much less. In other words, the great number of foreigners in American cities probably tends to obscure by a low divorce-rate the high rate of the native population. Divorce is certainly more common in the New England states than in any others on the Atlantic coast north of Florida, and it is not unlikely that wherever the New England families have gone divorce is more frequent than elsewhere. For example, it is much more common in the northern counties of Ohio settled largely from New England than in the southern counties settled largely from the Middle Atlantic states.

There are two statements frequently made regarding divorce in the United States which do not find warrant in the statistics on the subject. The first is, that the real motive for divorce with one or both parties is the desire for marriage to a third person. The second is, that a very large proportion of divorces are granted to persons who move from one jurisdiction to another in order to avail themselves of lax divorce laws. On the first point the American statistics are practically silent, since, in issuing a marriage licence to parties one or both of whom have been previously divorced, no record is generally made of the fact. In Connecticut, however, for a number of years this information was required; and, if the statements were trustworthy, the number of persons remarrying each year was about one-third the total number of persons divorcing, which is probably a rate not widely different from that of widows and widowers of the same age. Foreign figures for Switzerland, Holland and Berlin indicate that in those regions the proportion of the divorced who remarry speedily is about the same as that of widows and widowers. What statistical evidence there is on the subject therefore tends to discredit this popular opinion. The evidence on the second point is more conclusive, and has gone far towards decreasing the demand for a constitutional amendment allowing a federal marriage and divorce law. About four-fifths of all the divorces granted in the United States were issued to parties who were married in the state in which the decree of divorce was later made; and when from the remaining one-fifth are deducted those in which the parties migrated for other reasons than a desire to obtain an easy divorce, the remainder would constitute a very small, almost a negligible, fraction of the total number.

It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to say how far the frequency of divorce in the United States has been or is a social injury; how far it has weakened or undermined the ideal of marriage as a lifelong union between man and woman. In this respect the question is very like that of illegitimacy; and as the most careful students of the latter subject agree that almost no trustworthy inference regarding the moral condition of a community can be derived from the proportion of illegitimate children born, so one may say regarding the prevalence of divorce that from this fact almost no inferences are warranted regarding the moral or social condition of the population. It is by no means impossible, for example, that the spread of divorce among the negro population in the South marks a step in advance from the condition of largely unregulated and illegal unions characteristic of the race immediately after the war. The prevalence of divorce in the United States among the native population, in urban communities, among the New England element, in the middle classes of society, and among those of the Protestant faith, indicates how closely this social phenomenon is interlaced with much that is characteristic and valuable in American civilization. In this respect, too, the United States perhaps represent the outcome of a tendency which has been at work in Europe at least since the Reformation. Certainly the divorce-rate is increasing in nearly every civilized country. Decrees of nullity of marriage and decrees of separation not absolutely terminating the marriage relation are relatively far less prevalent than they were in the medieval and early modern period, and many persons who under former conditions would have obtained relief from unsatisfactory unions through one or the other of these avenues now resort to divorce. The increasing proportion of the community who have an income sufficient to pay the requisite legal fees is also a factor of great importance. The belief in the family as an institution ordained of God, decreed to continue “till death us do part,” and in its relations typifying and perpetuating many holy religious ideas, probably became weakened in the United States during the 19th century, along with a weakening of other religious conceptions; and it is yet to be determined whether a substitute for these ideas can be developed under the guidance of the motive of social utility or individual desire. In this respect the United States is, as Mr Gladstone once wrote, a tribus praerogativa, but one who knows anything of the family and home life of America will not readily despond of the outcome.

The great source of American statistical information is the governmental report of over 1000 pages, A Report on Marriage and Divorce in the United States 1867 to 1886, including an Appendix relating to Marriage and Divorce in Certain Countries of Europe, by Carroll D. Wright, Commissioner of Labour; together with the further report for 1887 to 1906. The statistics contained in the former volume have been analysed and interpreted in W. F. Willcox’s The Divorce Problem: A Study in Statistics (Columbia University, New York, 1891, 1897). Further interpretations are contained in an article in the Political Science Quarterly for March 1893, entitled “A Study in Vital Statistics.” The best legal treatise is probably Bishop on Marriage, Divorce, and Judicial Separation. See also J. P. Lichtenberger, Divorce: A Study in Social Causation (New York, 1909).

(W. F. W.)

1 In Constantinidi v. Constantinidi and Lance (1903), in which both parties were guilty of misconduct, it was held by Sir Francis Jeune (Lord St Helier) that where a wife has by her misconduct broken up the home (the husband’s misconduct not having conduced to the wife’s adultery) the court would exercise its discretion in favour of the husband petitioner, and, further, the wife being a rich woman, it was justifiable to give her husband a portion of her income, in order to preserve to him the position he would have occupied as her husband, the broad principle being that a guilty respondent should not be allowed to profit by divorce. But further litigation concerning this case occurred as to the variation of the marriage settlements in favour of the husband, and the decision of the court of appeal in July 1905 considerably modified the decision of Sir Francis Jeune.—Ed. E. B.

2 It is to be noted that by a decision of the court of appeal in Harriman v. Harriman in 1909, where a wife has been deserted by her husband and has obtained a separation order within two years from the time when the desertion commenced, she loses her right to plead desertion under the Matrimonial Causes Act 1857, and is therefore not entitled to a divorce after two years’ desertion, upon proof of adultery. See also Dodd v. Dodd, 1906, 22 T. L. R. 484.

3 In 1909 a Royal Commission was appointed to inquire into the law of divorce, with special reference to the position of the poorer classes.

4 It is interesting to observe how, according to the latest decisions of the House of Lords, cruelty, according to English law, includes some but not others of the forms of injury for which, under the term of injures graves, the French law affords a remedy. It may well be doubted whether the view taken by the minority of the peers in Russell v. Russell, which would have included in the definition of cruelty all, or nearly all, of that which the French law deems either sévices or injures graves, would not have better satisfied both the principles of English jurisprudence and the feelings of modern life.

DIWANIEH, a small town in Turkish Asia, about 40 m. below Hillah, on both banks of the Euphrates (31° 58′ 47″ N., 44° 58′ 18″ E.), which is here spanned by a floating bridge. Formerly a military post for the control of the Affech territory, and a telegraph station, it was in 1893 made the capital of the sanjak, instead of Hillah, on account of its more strategical position. This transfer of the seat of government represented a step in the development of Turkish control over the central regions of Irak.

DIX, DOROTHEA LYNDE (1802-1887), American philanthropist, was born at Hampden, Maine, on the 4th of April 1802. Her parents were poor and shiftless, and at an early age she was taken into the home in Boston of her grandmother, Dorothea Lynde, wife of Dr Elijah Dix. Here she was reared in a distinctly Puritanical atmosphere. About 1821 she opened a school in Boston, which was patronized by the well-to-do families; and soon afterwards she also began teaching poor and neglected children at home. But her health broke down, and from 1824 to 1830 she was chiefly occupied with the writing of books of devotion and stories for children. Her Conversations on Common Things (1824) had reached its sixtieth edition by 1869. In 1831 she established in Boston a model school for girls, and conducted this successfully until 1836, when her health again failed. In 1841 she became interested in the condition of gaols and almshouses, and spent two years in visiting every such institution in Massachusetts, investigating especially the treatment of the pauper insane. Her memorial to the state legislature dealing with the abuses she discovered resulted in more adequate provision being made for the care and treatment of the insane, and she then extended her work into many other states. By 1847 she had travelled from Nova Scotia to the Gulf of Mexico, and had visited 18 state penitentiaries, 300 county gaols and houses of correction, and over 500 almshouses. Her labours resulted in the establishment of insane asylums in twenty states and in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and in the founding of many additional gaols and almshouses conducted on a reformed plan. In 1853 she secured more adequate equipment for the life-saving service on Sable Island, then rightly called “the graveyard of ships.” In 1854 she secured the passage by Congress of a bill granting to the states 12,250,000 acres of public lands, to be utilized for the benefit of the insane, deaf, dumb and blind; but the measure was vetoed by President Pierce. After this disappointment she went to England for rest, but at once became interested in the condition of the insane in Scotland, and her report to the home secretary opened the way for sweeping reforms. She extended her work into the Channel Islands, and then to France, Italy, Austria, Greece, Turkey, Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium and a part of Germany. Her influence over Arinori Mori, the Japanese chargé d’affaires at Washington, led eventually to the establishment of two asylums for the insane in Japan. At the outbreak of the Civil War she offered her services to the Federal government and was appointed superintendent of women nurses. In this capacity she served throughout the war, without a day’s furlough; and her labours on behalf of defectives were continued after the war. After a lingering illness of six years she died at Trenton, New Jersey, on the 17th of July 1887.

See Francis Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix (Boston, 1892).

DIX, JOHN ADAMS (1798-1879), American soldier and political leader, was born at Boscawen, New Hampshire, on the 24th of July 1798. He studied at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1810-1811 and at the College of Montreal in 1811-1812, and as a boy took part in the War of 1812, becoming a second lieutenant in March 1814. In July 1828, having attained the rank of captain, he resigned from the army, and for two years practised law at Cooperstown, New York. In 1830-1833 he was adjutant-general of New York. He soon became prominent as one of the leaders of the Democratic party in the state, and for many years was a member of the so-called “Albany Regency,” a group of Democrats who between about 1820 and 1850 exercised a virtual control over their party in New York, dictating nominations and appointments and distributing patronage. From 1833 to 1839 he was secretary of state and superintendent of schools in New York, and in this capacity made valuable reports concerning the public schools of the state, and a report (1836) which led to the publication of the Natural History of the State of New York (1842-1866). In 1842 he was a member of the New York assembly. In 1841-1843 he was editor of The Northern Light, a literary and scientific journal published in Albany. From 1845 to 1849 he was a United States senator from New York; and as chairman of the committee on commerce was author of the warehouse bill passed by Congress in 1846 to relieve merchants from immediate payment of duties on imported goods. In 1848 he was nominated for governor of New York by the Free Soil party, but was defeated by Hamilton Fish. His acceptance of the nomination, however, earned him the enmity of the southern Democrats, who prevented his appointment by Pierce as secretary of state and as minister to France in 1853. In this year Dix was for a few weeks assistant U.S. treasurer in New York city. In May 1860 he became postmaster of New York city, and from January until March 1861 he was secretary of the treasury of the United States, in which capacity he issued (January 29, 1861) to a revenue officer at New Orleans a famous order containing the words, “if any one attempts to haul down the American flag, shoot him on the spot.” He rendered important services in hurrying forward troops in 1861, was appointed major-general of volunteers in June 1861, and during the Civil War commanded successively the department of Maryland (July 1861-May 1862), Fortress Monroe (May 1862-July 1863), and the department of the East (July 1863-July 1865). He was minister to France from 1866 to 1869, and in 1872 was elected by the Republicans governor of New York, but was defeated two years later. He had great energy and administrative ability, was for a time president of the Chicago & Rock Island and of the Mississippi & Missouri railways, first president of the Union Pacific in 1863-1868, and for a short time in 1872 president of the Erie. He died in New York city on the 21st of April 1879. Among his publications are A Winter in Madeira and a Summer in Spain and Florence (1850), and Speeches and Occasional Addresses (1864). He wrote excellent English versions of the Dies irae and the Stabat mater.

His son, Morgan Dix (1827-1908), graduated at Columbia in 1848 and at the General Theological Seminary in 1852, and was ordained deacon (1852) and priest (1853) in the Protestant Episcopalian church. In 1855-1859 he was assistant minister, and in 1859-1862 assistant rector, of Trinity Church, New York city, of which he was rector from 1862 until his death. He published sermons and lectures; A History of the Parish of Trinity Church, New York City (4 vols., 1898-1905); and a biography of his father. Memoirs of John Adams Dix (2 vols., New York, 1883).

DIXON, GEORGE (1755?-1800), English navigator. He served under Captain Cook in his third expedition, during which he had an opportunity of learning the commercial capabilities of the north-west coast of North America. After his return from Cook’s expedition he became a captain in the royal navy. In the autumn of 1785 he sailed in the “Queen Charlotte,” in the service of the King George’s Sound Company of London, to explore the shores of the present British Columbia, with the special object of developing the fur trade. His chief discoveries were those of Queen Charlotte’s Islands and Sound (the latter only partial), Port Mulgrave, Norfolk Bay, and Dixon’s Entrance and Archipelago. After visiting China, where he disposed of his cargo, he returned to England (1788), and published (1799) A Voyage round the World, but more particularly to the North-West Coast of America, the bulk of which consists of descriptive letters by William Beresford, his supercargo. His own contribution to the work included valuable charts and appendices. He is usually, though not with absolute certainty, identified with the George Dixon who was author of The Navigator’s Assistant (1791) and teacher of navigation at Gosport.

DIXON, HENRY HALL (1822-1870), English sporting writer over the nom de plume “The Druid,” was born at Warwick Bridge, Cumberland, on the 16th of May 1822, and was educated at Rugby and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1846. He took up the profession of the law, but, though called to the bar in 1853, soon returned to sporting journalism, in which he had already made a name for himself, and began to write regularly for the Sporting Magazine, in the pages of which appeared three of his novels, Post and Paddock (1856), Silk and Scarlet (1859), and Scott and Sebright (1862). He also published a legal compendium entitled The Law of the Farm (1858), which ran through several editions. His other more important works were Field and Fern (1865), giving an account of the herds and flocks of Scotland, and Saddle and Sirloin (1870), treating in the same manner those of England. He died at Kensington on the 16th of March 1870.

See Hon. Francis Lawley, Life and Times of “The Druid” (London, 1895).

DIXON, RICHARD WATSON (1833-1900), English poet and divine, son of Dr James Dixon, a Wesleyan minister, was born on the 5th of May 1833. He was educated at King Edward’s school, Birmingham, and on proceeding to Pembroke College, Oxford, became one of the famous “Birmingham group” there who shared with William Morris and Burne-Jones in the Pre-Raphaelite movement. He took only a second class in moderations in 1854, and a third in Literae Humaniores in 1856; but in 1858 he won the Arnold prize for an historical essay, and in 1863 the English Sacred Poem prize. He was ordained in 1858, was second master of Carlisle high school, 1863-1868, and successively vicar of Hayton, Cumberland, and Warkworth, Northumberland. He became minor canon and honorary librarian of Carlisle in 1868, and honorary canon in 1874, he was proctor in convocation (1890-1894), and received the honorary degree of D.D. from Oxford in 1899. He died at Warkworth on the 23rd of January 1900. Canon Dixon’s first two volumes of verse, Christ’s Company and Historical Odes, were published in 1861 and 1863 respectively; but it was not until 1883 that he attracted conspicuous notice with Mano, an historical poem in terza rima, which was enthusiastically praised by Mr Swinburne. This success he followed up by three privately printed volumes. Odes and Eclogues (1884), Lyrical Poems (1886), and The Story of Eudocia (1888). Dixon’s poems were during the last fifteen years of his life recognized as scholarly and refined exercises, touched with both dignity and a certain severe beauty, but he never attained any general popularity as a poet, the appeal of his poetry being directly to the scholar. A great student of history, his studies in that direction colour much of his poetry. The romantic atmosphere is remarkably preserved in Mano, a successful metrical exercise in the difficult terza rima. His typical poems have charm and melody, without introducing any new note or variety of rhythm. He is contemplative, sober and finished in literary workmanship, a typical example of the Oxford school. Pleasant as his poetry is, however, he will probably be longest remembered by the work to which he gave the best years of his life, his History of the Church of England from the Abolition of the Roman Jurisdiction (1878-1902). At the time of his death he had completed six volumes, two of which were published posthumously. This fine work, covering the period from 1529 to 1570, is built upon elaborate research, and presents a trustworthy and unprejudiced survey of its subject.

Dixon’s Selected Poems were published in 1909 with a memoir of the author by Robert Bridges.

DIXON, WILLIAM HEPWORTH (1821-1879), English author and traveller, was born at Great Ancoats, Manchester, on the 30th of June 1821, a member of an old Lancashire family. Beginning life as a clerk at Manchester, he decided, in 1846, to take up literature as a career. After gaining some journalistic experience at Cheltenham he settled in London, on the recommendation of Douglas Jerrold, and contributed to the Athenaeum and Daily News. His series of papers—“The Literature of the Lower Orders”—in the last-named journal, and a further series, “London Prisons,” were widely noticed. In 1849 appeared his John Howard and the Prison World of Europe, which proved a great popular success. These were followed by a Life of William Penn (1851), in which he replied to Macaulay’s attack on Penn; Life of Blake (1852); and Personal History of Lord Bacon (1861), supplemented by The Story of Lord Bacon’s Life (1862). From 1853 to 1869 he was editor of the Athenaeum. In 1863 he visited the East, and on his return helped to found the Palestine Exploration Fund, and published (1865) The Holy Land. In 1866 he travelled through the United States, publishing, in 1867, New America, and, the following year, Spiritual Wives, two supplementary volumes. In the autumn of 1867 he journeyed through the Baltic Provinces, publishing an account of his trip in Free Russia (1870). In 1871 he was in Switzerland, and in 1872 in Spain, where he wrote the greater part of his History of Two Queens. In 1874 he revisited the United States, giving the impressions of his tour in The White Conquest (1875). His other works, besides some fiction, were British Cyprus (1879) and Royal Windsor. He died on the 26th of December 1879. His daughter, Ella N. Hepworth Dixon, became known as a journalist and novelist.

DIXON, a city and the county seat of Lee county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the Rock river, in the N.W. part of the state. Pop. (1890) 5161; (1900) 7917 (879 foreign-born); (1910) 7216. It is served by the Chicago & North-Western and the Illinois Central railways, and is connected with Sterling by an electric line; freight is shipped over the Hennepin Canal. The city has two parks of 159 and 6 acres respectively, and there is a Chautauqua Park, where an annual Chautauqua Assembly is held. Dixon is the seat of the Northern Illinois normal school (incorporated in 1884), and of the Rock River military academy. The river furnishes water power for the street railways, electric lighting and a number of manufacturing establishments. Among the manufactures are condensed milk, boxes, wire screens and wire cloth, lawn mowers, gas engines, cement, agricultural implements, shoes and wagons. The place was laid out in 1835 by John Dixon (1784-1876), the first white settler of Lee county. A bronze tablet in the Howells Building, at the intersection of First and Peoria Streets, marks the site of his cabin, and in the city cemetery a granite shaft has been erected to his memory. Dixon was chartered as a city in 1859.

DIZFUL, or Diz-Pul (“fort-bridge”), a town of Persia, in the province of Arabistan, 36 m. N.W. of Shushter, in 32° 25′ N., 48° 28′ E. Pop. about 25,000. It has post and telegraph offices. It is situated on the left bank of the Dizful river, a tributary of the Karun, crossed by a fine bridge of twenty-two arches, 430 yds. in length, constructed on ancient foundations. Dizful is the chief place of a small district of the same name and the residence of the governor of Arabistan during the winter months. The district has twelve villages and a population of about 35,000 (5000 Arabs of the Ali i Kethīr tribe), and pays a yearly tribute of about £6000. The city was formerly known as Andamish, and in its vicinity are many remains of ancient canals and buildings which afford conclusive proof of former importance. 16 m. S.W. are the ruins of Susa, and east of them and half-way between Dizful and Shushter stood the old city of Junday Shapur.

DJAKOVO (sometimes written Djakovar, Hungarian Diakovár), a city of Croatia-Slavonia, Hungary; in the county of Virovitica, 100 m. E. by S. of Agram. Pop. (1900) 6824. Djakovo is a Roman Catholic episcopal see, whose occupant bears the title “Bishop of Bosnia, Slavonia and Sirmium.” During the life of Bishop Strossmayer (1815-1905) it was one of the chief centres of religious and political activity among the Croats. The cathedral, a vast basilica built of brick and white stone, with a central dome and two lofty spires above the north entrance, was founded in 1866 and consecrated in 1882. Its style is Romanesque, chosen by Strossmayer as symbolical of the position of his country midway between east and west. The interior is magnificently decorated with mosaics, mural paintings and statuary, chiefly the work of local artists. Other noteworthy buildings are the nunnery, ecclesiastical seminary and episcopal palace. Djakovo has a thriving trade in agricultural produce. Many Roman remains have been discovered in the neighbourhood, but the earliest mention of the city is in 1244, when Béla IV. of Hungary confirmed the title-deeds of its owners, the bishops of Bosnia.

For a full description of the cathedral, in Serbo-Croatian and French, see the finely illustrated folio Stolna Crkva u Djakovu, published by the South Slavonic Academy (Agram, 1900).

DLUGOSZ, JAN [Johannes Longinus] (1415-1480), Polish statesman and historian, was the son of Jan Dlugosz, burgrave of Bozeznica. Born in 1415, he graduated at the university of Cracow and in 1431 entered the service of Bishop Zbygniew Olesnicki (1389-1455), the statesman and diplomatist. He speedily won the favour of his master, who induced him to take orders and made him his secretary. His preferment was rapid. In 1436 we find him one of the canons of Cracow and the administrator of Olesnicki’s vast estates. In 1440, on returning from Hungary, whither his master had escorted King Wladislaus II., Dlugosz saved the life of Olesnicki from robbers. The prelate now employed Dlugosz on the most delicate and important political missions. Dlugosz brought Olesnicki the red hat from Rome in 1449, and shortly afterwards was despatched to Hungary to mediate between Hunyadi and the Bohemian condottiere Giszkra, a difficult mission which he most successfully accomplished. Both these embassies were undertaken contrary to the wishes of King Casimir IV., who was altogether opposed to Olesnicki’s ecclesiastical policy. But though he thus sacrificed his own prospects to the cardinal’s good pleasure, Dlugosz was far too sagacious to approve of the provocative attitude of Olesnicki, and frequently and fearlessly remonstrated with him on his conduct. In his account, however, of the quarrel between Casimir and Olesnicki concerning the question of priority between the cardinal and the primate of Poland he warmly embraced the cause of the former, and even pronounced Casimir worthy of dethronement. Such outbursts against Casimir IV. are not infrequent in Dlugosz’s Historia Polonica, and his strong personal bias must certainly be taken into consideration in any critical estimate of that famous work. Yet as a high-minded patriot Dlugosz had no sympathy whatever with Olesnicki’s opposition to Casimir’s Prussian policy, and steadily supported the king during the whole course of the war with the Teutonic knights. When Olesnicki died in 1455 he left Dlugosz his principal executor. The office of administering the cardinal’s estate was a very ungrateful one, for the family resented the liberal benefactions of their kinsman to the Church and the university, and accused Dlugosz of exercising undue influence, from which charge he triumphantly vindicated himself. It was in the year of his patron’s death that he began to write his Historia Polonica. This great book, the first and still one of the best historical works on Poland in the modern sense of the word, was only undertaken after mature consideration and an exhaustive study of all the original sources then available, some of which are now lost. The principal archives of Poland and Hungary were ransacked for the purpose, and in his account of his own times Dlugosz’s intimate acquaintance with the leading scholars and statesmen of his day stood him in good stead. The style is modelled on that of Livy, of whom Dlugosz was a warm admirer. As a proof of the thoroughness and conscientiousness of Dlugosz it may be mentioned that he learned the Cyrillic alphabet and took up the study of Ruthenian, “in order that this our history may be as plain and perfect as possible.” The first of the numerous imprints of the Historia Polonica appeared in 1614, the first complete edition in 1711.

Dlugosz’s literary labours did not interfere with his political activity. In 1467 the generous and discerning Casimir IV. entrusted Dlugosz with the education of his sons, the eldest of whom, Wladislaus, at the urgent request of the king, he accompanied to Prague when in 1471 the young prince was elected king of Bohemia. Dlugosz refused the archbishopric of Prague because of his strong dislike of the land of the Hussites; but seven years later he accepted the archbishopric of Lemberg. His last years were devoted to his history, which he completed in 1479. He died on the 19th of May 1480, at Piatek.

See Aleksander Semkowicz, Critical Considerations of the Polish Works of Dlugosz (Pol.; Cracow, 1874); Michael Bobrzynski and Stanislaw Smolka, Life of Dlugosz and his Position in Literature (Pol.; Cracow, 1893).

(R. N. B.)

DMITRIEV, IVAN IVANOVICH (1760-1837), Russian statesman and poet, was born at his father’s estate in the government of Simbirsk. In consequence of the revolt of Pugachev the family had to flee to St Petersburg, and there Ivan was entered at the school of the Semenov Guards, and afterwards obtained a post in the military service. On the accession of Paul to the imperial throne he quitted the army with the title of colonel; and his appointment as procurator for the senate was soon after renounced for the position of privy councillor. During the four years from 1810 to 1814 he served as minister of justice under the emperor Alexander; but at the close of this period he retired into private life, and though he lived more than twenty years, he never again took office, but occupied himself with his literary labours and the collection of books and works of art. In the matter of language he sided with Karamsin, and did good service by his own pen against the Old Slavonic party. His poems include songs, odes, satires, tales, epistles, &c., as well as the fables—partly original and partly translated from Fontaine, Florian and Arnault—on which his fame chiefly rests. Several of his lyrics have become thoroughly popular from the readiness with which they can be sung; and a short dramatico-epic poem on Yermak, the Cossack conqueror of Siberia, is well known.

His writings occupy three volumes in the first five editions; in the 6th (St Petersburg, 1823) there are only two. His memoirs, to which he devoted the last years of his life, were published at Moscow in 1866.

DNIEPER, one of the most important rivers of Europe (the Borysthenes of the Greeks, Danapris of the Romans, Uzi or Uzu of the Turks, Eksi of the Tatars, Elice of Visconti’s map (1381), Lerene of Contarini (1437), Luosen of Baptista of Genoa (1514), and Lussem in the same century). It belongs entirely to Russia, and rises in the government of Smolensk, in a swampy district (alt. 930 ft.) at the foot of the Valdai Hills, not far from the sources of the Volga and the Dvina, in 55° 52’ N. and 33° 41’ E. Its length is about 1410 m. and it drains an area of 202,140 sq. m. In the first part of its course, which may be said to end at Dorogobuzh, it flows through an undulating country of Carboniferous formation; in the second it passes west to Orsha, south through the fertile plain of Chernigov and Kiev, and then south-east across the rocky steppe of the Ukraine to Ekaterinoslav. About 45 m. S. of this town it has to force its way across the same granitic offshoot of the Carpathian mountains which interrupts the course of the Dniester and the Bug, and for a distance of about 25 m. rapid succeeds rapid. The fall of the river in that distance is 155 ft. The Dnieper, having got clear of the rocks, continues south-west through the grassy plains of Kherson and Taurida, and enters the Black Sea, or rather a liman or bay of the Black Sea, by a considerable estuary in 46° 30′ N. and 32° 20′ E. On this ramifying liman, into which the Bug also pours its waters, stand Nikolaiev and the fortified town of Ochakov. Navigation extends as far up as Dorogobuzh, where the depth is about 12 ft., and rafts are floated down from the higher reaches. The banks are generally high, more particularly the left bank. About the town of Smolensk the breadth is 455 ft., at the confluence of the Pripet 1400, and in some parts of the Ekaterinoslav district more than 1¼ m. In the course above the rapids the channel varies very greatly in nature and depth, and it is not infrequently interrupted by shallows. The rapids, or porogs, form a serious obstacle to navigation; it is only for a few weeks when the river is in flood that they are passable, and even then the venture is not without risk and can only be undertaken with the assistance of special pilots. It is from these falls that the Cossacks of the Ukraine came to be known as Zaporogian Cossacks. As early as 1732 an attempt was made to improve the channel. A canal, which ultimately proved too small for use, was constructed at Nenasitets in 1780 at private expense; blastings were carried out in 1798 and 1799 at various parts; in 1805 a canal was formed at Kaindatski, and the channel straightened at Sursk; by 1807 a new canal was completed at Nenasitets; in 1833 a passage was cleared through the Staro-kaindatski porog; and in the period 1843 to 1853 numerous ameliorations were effected. The result has been not only to diminish greatly the dangers of the natural channel, but also to furnish a series of artificial canals by which vessels can make their way when the river is low. Of the tributaries of the Dnieper the following are navigable,—the Berezina and the Pripet from the right, and the Sozh and the Desna from the left. By means of the Dnieper-Bug (King’s) canal, and the Berezina and Oginski canals, this river has a sort of water connexion with the Baltic Sea. In the estuary the fisheries give employment to large numbers of people. At Kiev the river is free from ice on an average of 234 days in the year, at Ekaterinoslav 270 and at Kherson 277.

(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)

DNIESTER (Tyras and Danaster or Danastris of classical authors, Nistrul of the Rumanians, and Turla of the Turks), a river of south-eastern Europe belonging to the basin of the Black Sea. It rises on the northern slope of the Carpathian mountains in Austrian Galicia, and belongs for the first 350 m. of its course to Austrian, for the remaining 515 m. to Russian, territory. It drains an area of 29,670 sq. m., of which 16,500 sq. m. belong to Russia. It is excessively meandering, and the current in most parts even during low water is decidedly rapid as compared with Russian rivers generally, the mean rate being calculated at 17⁄11 m. per hour. The average width of the channel is from 500 to 750 ft., but in some places it attains as much as 1400 ft.; the depth is various and changeable. The principal interruption in the navigable portion of the river, besides a sprinkling of rocks in the bed and the somewhat extensive shallows, is occasioned by a granitic spur from the Carpathians, which gives rise to the Yampol Rapids. For ordinary river craft the passage of these rapids is rendered possible, but not free from danger, by a natural channel on the left side, and by a larger and deeper artificial channel on the right; for steamboats they form an insuperable barrier. The river falls into the sea by several arms, passing through a shallow liman or lagoon, a few miles S.W. of Odessa. There are two periodical floods,—the earlier and larger caused by the breaking up of the ice, and occurring in the latter part of February or in March; and the later due to the melting of the snows in the Carpathians, and taking place about June. The spring flood raises the level of the water 20 ft., and towards the mouth of the river submerges the gardens and vineyards of the adjacent country. In some years the general state of the water is so low that navigation is possible only for three or four weeks, while in other years it is so high that navigation continues without interruption; but in recent years considerable improvements have been effected at government expense. In consequence the traffic has increased, the Dniester tapping regions of great productiveness, especially in cereals and timber, namely, Galicia, Podolia and Bessarabia. Steamboat traffic was introduced in the lower reaches in 1840. The fisheries of the lower course and of the estuary are of considerable importance; and these, together with those of the lakes which are formed by the inundations, furnish a valuable addition to the diet of the people in the shape of carp, pike, tench, salmon, sturgeon and eels. Its tributaries are numerous, but not of individual importance, except perhaps the Sereth in Galicia.

(P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)

DOAB, Duab or Dooab, a name, like the Greek Mesopotamia, applied in India, according to its derivation (do, two, and ab, river), to the stretch of country lying between any two rivers, as the Bari Doab between the Sutlej and the Ravi, the Rechna Doab between the Ravi and the Chenab, the Jech Doab between the Chenab and Jhelum, and the Sind Sagar Doab between the Jhelum and the Indus, but frequently employed, without any distinctive adjunct, as the proper name for the region between the Ganges and its great tributary the Jumna. In like manner the designation of Doab canal is given to the artificial channel which breaks off from the Jumna near Fyzabad, and flows almost parallel with the river till it reunites with it at Delhi.

DOANE, GEORGE WASHINGTON (1799-1859), American churchman, Protestant Episcopal bishop of New Jersey, was born in Trenton, New Jersey, on the 27th of May 1799. He graduated at Union College, Schenectady, New York, in 1818, studied theology and, in 1821, was ordained deacon and in 1823 priest by Bishop Hobart, whom he assisted in Trinity church, New York. With George Upfold (1796-1872), bishop of Indiana from 1849 to 1872, Doane founded St Luke’s in New York City. In 1824-1828 he was professor of belles-lettres in Washington (now Trinity) College, Hartford, Connecticut, and at this time he was one of the editors of the Episcopal Watchman. He was assistant in 1828-1830 and rector in 1830-1832 of Christ church, Boston, and was bishop of New Jersey from October 1832 to his death at Burlington, New Jersey, on the 27th of April 1859. The diocese of New Jersey was an unpromising field, but he took up his work there with characteristic vigour, especially in the foundation of St Mary’s Hall (1837, for girls) and Burlington College (1846) as demonstrations of his theory of education under church control. His business management of these schools got him heavily into debt, and in the autumn of 1852 a charge of lax administration came before a court of bishops, who dismissed it. The schools showed him an able and wise disciplinarian, and his patriotic orations and sermons prove him a speaker of great power. He belonged to the High Church party and was a brilliant controversialist. He published Songs by the Way (1824), a volume of poems; and his hymns beginning “Softly now the light of day” and “Thou art the Way” are well known.

See Life and Writings of George Washington Doane (4 vols., New York, 1860-1861), edited by his son, William Croswell Doane (b. 1832), first bishop of Albany.

DOBBS FERRY, a village of Westchester county, New York, on the E. bank of the Hudson river 2 m. N. of Yonkers. Pop. (1890) 2083; (1900) 2888; (1910 U. S. census) 3455. Dobbs Ferry is served by the Hudson River division of the New York Central railway. There are many fine country places, two private schools—the Mackenzie school for boys and the Misses Masters’ school for girls—and the children’s village (with about thirty cottages) of the New York juvenile asylum. The name of the village was derived from a Swede, Jeremiah Dobbs, whose family probably moved hither from Delaware, and who at the beginning of the last quarter of the 18th century had a skiff ferry, which was kept up by his family for a century afterwards. Because Dobbs Ferry had been a part of Philipse Manor all lands in it were declared forfeit at the time of the War of American Independence (see Yonkers), and new titles were derived from the commissioners of forfeitures. The position of the village opposite the northernmost end of the Palisades gave it importance during the war. The region was repeatedly raided by camp followers of each army; earthworks and a fort, commanding the Hudson ferry and the ferry to Paramus, New Jersey, were built; the British army made Dobbs Ferry a rendezvous, after the battle of White Plains, in November 1776, and the continental division under General Benjamin Lincoln was here at the end of January 1777. The American army under Washington encamped near Dobbs Ferry on the 4th of July 1781, and started thence for Yorktown in the following month. In the Van Brugh Livingston house on the 6th of May 1783, Washington and Governor George Clinton met General Sir Guy Carleton, afterwards Lord Dorchester, to negotiate for the evacuation by the British troops of the posts they still held in the United States. In 1873 the village was incorporated as Greenburgh, from the township of the same name which in 1788 had been set apart from the manor of Phillipsburgh; but the name Dobbs Ferry was soon resumed.

DOBELL, SYDNEY THOMPSON (1824-1874), English poet and critic, was born on the 5th of April 1824 at Cranbrook, Kent. His father was a wine merchant, his mother a daughter of Samuel Thompson (1766-1837), a London political reformer. The family moved to Cheltenham when Dobell was twelve years old. He was educated privately, and never attended either school or university. He refers to this in some lines on Cheltenham College in imitation of Chaucer, written in his eighteenth year. After a five years’ engagement he married, in 1844, Emily Fordham, a lady of good family. An acquaintance with Mr (subsequently Sir James) Stansfeld and with the Birmingham preacher-politician, George Dawson (1821-1876), which afterwards led to the foundation of the Society of the Friends of Italy, fed the young enthusiast’s ardour for the liberalism of the day. Meanwhile, Dobell wrote a number of minor poems, instinct with a passionate desire for political reform. The Roman appeared in 1850, under the nom de plume of “Sydney Yendys.” Next year he travelled through Switzerland with his wife; and after his return he formed friendships with Robert Browning, Philip Bailey, George MacDonald, Emanuel Deutsch, Lord Houghton, Ruskin, Holman Hunt, Mazzini, Tennyson and Carlyle. His second long poem, Balder, appeared in 1854. The three following years were spent in Scotland. Perhaps his closest friend at this time was Alexander Smith, in company with whom he published, in 1855, a number of sonnets on the Crimean War, which were followed by a volume on England in Time of War. Although by no means a rich man he was always ready to help needy men of letters, and it was through his exertions that David Gray’s poems were published. In 1869 a horse, which he was riding, fell and rolled over with him. His health, which had for several years necessitated his wintering abroad, was seriously affected by this accident, and he was from this time more or less of an invalid, until his death on the 22nd of August 1874.

As a poet Dobell belongs to the “spasmodic school,” as it was named by Professor Aytoun, who parodied its style in Firmilian. The epithet, however, was first applied by Carlyle to Byron. The school includes George Gilfillan, Philip James Bailey, John Stanyan Bigg (1826-1865), Dobell, Alexander Smith, and, according to some critics, Gerald Massey. It was characterized by an under-current of discontent with the mystery of existence, by vain effort, unrewarded struggle, sceptical unrest, and an uneasy straining after the unattainable. It thus faithfully reflected a certain phase of 19th century thought. The productions of the school are marked by an excess of metaphor and a general extravagance of language. On the other hand, they exhibit freshness and originality often lacking in more conventional writings. Dobell’s poem, The Roman, dedicated to the interests of political liberty in Italy, is marked by pathos, energy and passionate love of freedom, but it is overlaid with monologue, which is carried to a dreary excess in Balder, relieved though the latter is by fine descriptive passages, and by some touching songs. Dobell’s suggestive, but too ornate prose writings were collected and edited with an introductory note by Professor J. Nichol (Thoughts on Art, Philosophy and Religion) in 1876. In his religious views Dobell was a Christian of the Broad Church type; and socially he was one of the most amiable and true-hearted of men. His early interest in the cause of oppressed nationalities, shown in his friendship with Kossuth, Emanuel Deutsch and others, never lessened, although his views of home politics underwent some change from the radical opinions of his youth. In Gloucestershire Dobell was well known as an advocate of social reform, and he was a pioneer in the application of the co-operative system to private enterprise.

The standard edition of his poems (1875) by Professor Nichol includes a memoir.