The Cadiz Sentinel

HOW TO PASS A DIVORCE BILL.
A SCENE IN THE OHIO LEGISLATURE.
BY THE EDITOR OF THE SENTINEL

During the session of '39 and '40 of the Ohio Legislature there were an unusual number of applications for divorce. Petition after petition was daily heaped upon the clerk's table, like Pelion on Ossa. Julia Shincfelt and some fifty other loving daughters of mother Eve daily bored the 'most potent, grave and reverend' law makers, to cut asunder the bonds matrimonial, and permit them again to invest themselves in the gay habiliments of maidenhood! These petitions were ingeniously drawn up, couched in all the glowing language of abused innocence, and were accompanied frequently by documentary evidence and affidavits sufficiently strong to open the briny fountains, and deluge the cheeks of the ugly Solons, and the gaping crowd in the gallery!

But we must preface our story by stating that a personage skilled in 'Squiry,' yclept the 'Governor of the State of Columbiana,' was in the daily habit of annoying the Legislature, by speaking on every subject, and always starting, like Banquo's ghost, when least expected, With the gravity of Sancho Panza, he addressed the Speaker, and brandished his arms aloft, usually dealt out a vocabulary of his own coinage— words that never entered into the craniums of Johnson, Webster, or Sheridan; but are they not written in the chronicles of the member from Pickaway?

George H. Flood, our late Charge d'Affairs to Texas, then a member of the House of Representatives, was chairman of the committee on the Judiciary, to which committee all petitions for divorce were referred. When the committee reported a bill for divorce, it was usually passed by the House without the reading of the accompanying documents, unless his Excellency of Columbiana, to gratify his morbid curiosity, and heighten his popularity with the loafers and loungers of the lobbies, would use his prerogative by calling for them.

Mrs. —, a lady of highly respectable connections, who had been rendered miserable by the dissolute habits of an incontinent husband, applied for a separation. A bill in her favor was reported, and passed its first and second reading. When it came up for final action the lobbies and galleries were thronged by an eager crowd. It was the wish of the members that it should pass without the nature of the papers being made known to the public.

'Is the House ready for the question?' asked the Speaker.

'Question! question!' was heard from every quarter.

'Mr. Speaker,' exclaimed he of Columbiana, springing to his feet with the suddenness of a rat-trap. 'Mr. Speaker, afore that bill are passed, I call for the readin' of the papers,' and he closed his jack-knife and grinned at the gallery!

Mr. Flood thereupon rose with much gravity, and said, 'Mr. Speaker, before the papers are read, I have an amendment to offer to the bill, by way of rider, which I will now read:

Resolved, By the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Ohio, that the sum of Three Dollars per day extra be paid to the Governor of the State of Columbiana, for his disinterested efforts in enlightening the committee on the Judiciary, aiding the committee on banks and the currency by his fiscal wisdom; by teaching the committee on roads how to Macadamize morasses; by his philanthropic hints to the committee on the penitentiary; by fumigating the House with the incense from his smoke pipe; by benefiting the State at the expense of his lungs; and by feeding his nasal organ from other people's snuff-boxes!'

Amid a peal of irresistible laughter, up rose the 'Governor,' his nostrils distended, his eyes protruding, his hair on end like the quills of a porcupine, and

"his arms
Aloft extending, like imperial Jove,
When guilt draws down the thunder."

'Mr. Speaker,' he cried. 'Mr. Speaker, I can stand it no longer. If the member from Licking intends that scurrilous attack as a premeditated insult, I feel myself obliged to call him to a sense of honor, by saying he are an Christian and inhuman man, and—'

Speaker—'The member must preserve order.'

Governor—'Aint it in order to defend a body's self against invidious distinctions?'

Speaker—'If the member has any reason to assign why the amendment should not be adopted, it will be in order.'

Mr. Flood—'I hope the House will overlook the question of order, and permit the gentleman to proceed with his remarks, for they are certainly chivalrous enough to entitle him to knighthood, and eloquent enough to render him immortal.'

Shouts of laughter again resounded through the hall. The enraged Governor seized his hat with both hands, and looking daggers at the Speaker, and horrible defiance at the member from Licking, left the House with disgust!

The amendment of Mr. Flood effected its intended object, and the bill was then passed.