A DIVORCE COLONY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 204, 18 August 1908, Page 4

A DIVORCE COLONY.

JJJfiALIMi Willi. ".UAx'itlilOMAL MISt'TiS. Amongst tin: "health resorts'' which are iiuw zealously udvcriisiug tlieir claims to patronage, i see (wrii.es the New York correspondent ol Ule "Daily Telegraph') Uuit Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is prominent. Sioux Falls maintains oiiu of t-Ji-o strangest industries iu tllie world, where a colony, averaging live hundred, seeks' release lrom maiiual ditlicultics. Sioux i'alls is appropriately described as "tile great surgery for the cure of matrimonial

appenuicilis." Since January 1007, biuux Falls has granted 200 divorces of die kiud which recently exasperated one of your English judges, who spoke of them in terms which were reproduced approvingly in the American newspapers. , Matrimonial misfits can reside at tliie falls for ninety days, "barely more than a summer outing,"' and at the end of that period can secure freedom "easily, quickly, and surely," to quote a typical advertisement of local divorce lawyers. Not many of tile couples who colonise the I'alls are "orphans of the heart." Cheerful and philosophical souls with money and enterprise, whose big motor ears dash up and down the'main tlior- . ouhfarcs of the city, and give an element of Social life to the place, predominate. The .town caters fur all, poor and rich, it is an elastic colony, with big villas at extravagent rates, and .boardiughouses where you can live lor the ninety days at 20s. weekly, wmi- " petition amongst lilie toe-al divorce lawyers is keen. If you don't get a ban giiiii rate from one firm it is quite usual to consult another, and in this way tile cost of divorce is occasionally reduced from £2(100 to £3O. lint there is no trade union -enle of prices, and some will gel a divorce for It is impressed on people who desire to reside at Sioux Falls for judicial purposes that they need not really stay there ail tihe time, so long as lodgings are retained, and that there is a minimum publicity given to their suit. Sioux Falls, with its divorce colony as an important asset. would he killing the the goose that lavs the golden eggs if it were to report evidence in eases, and even the local newspapers pay little attention to the divorce business, except, in special cases. The business lias gone on for twenty years. At present tHie divorce mills, as tbev are called, are under a shadow because of ,i legislative proposal to compel aspirants to matrimonial freedom to reside a full year, instead of ninety days. American opinion generally denounces South Dakota divorces, and requests that the State, shall revise its laws in harmony with the other States of the Virion; which are just as strict as in , England. 1