Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1907 — MORE CIRCUIT COURT MATTERS [ARTICLE]

MORE CIRCUIT COURT MATTERS

The biff divorce cise of Weese vs Weese, which has been on the docket for three years or more was dismissed by the coart for want of prosecution. It is not known for a certainty what has become of the parties; but it is said the woman has got a divorce in some other county and has already got another husband, and possibly is ready lor another divorce by this time. The attorney who started the case here, Geo. Palmer, of Monticello, is now in Alberta. The belligerent Duclos family of neai- Morocco, who find four terms of court a year in Newton couuly, not frequent enough to settle their matrimonial,, family and property troubles, had another round before Judge Hanley Wednesday. Mr. Duclos claims that the’ Judge’s former order as to him being permitted to see their . r our year old child was not being recognized by his wife and older sons, and there was also a fresh demand for a settlement of the personal prope ty rights of the parties. The Judge = gave Duclos a Still more favorable order as to seeing his boy, being that .be might see and have him with him on Thursday and Sunday of each week, from 8 a. m. to 0 p. m. The property he ordered should remain in its present state and pos session until the case is tried in Newton county. The state libel cate against Editor Babcock, in which former Commissioner A. Halleck was complainant came to a sudden and unlooked for end. It was dismissed by Judge Palmer, who was trying the case, on an alleged fault in the affidavit which he discovered himself, and which had escaped the notice of Judge Hanlej, who had previously held the affidavit good, and ot the eagle-eyed attorneys for the de sense, also. The case had gone to to trial and Senator Will Wood, of Lafayette, chief attorney for the defense, objected to the admission of the copy of the Democrat containing the alleged libelous article, because in the affidavit this article was not copied in full, but only a few of the more virulent lines and sentences were given. The judge took a look at the original article and then overruled Mr. Wood’s objections, but at the same time discovered and called attention to, what he held were the fatal defects or mistakes in the affidavit. It seems that in this document the lines quoted from the Democrat were marked at their commence ment with quotation, thus “, and should have been so at their ends, also. But every once in a while, the attorney who drew up the affidavit would insert brief remarks into the middle of the editor’s quoted remarks, inclosing these explanatory observations in marks of parenthesis, thus (). But when these parenthetical observations were indulged in, they were not preceded and followed by the quotation marks. Judge Palmer held that by their absence it might be construed that that the Democrat man had published the article with the parenthetical remarks also as part of it, and so he ruled that the affidavit was bad, and ordered the defendant discharged. As the case had gone to trial, it can not be brought up again on this article. The Republican does not believe in so many technicalities in the laws and practice of Indiana, and for that reason does not believe in this one, but it is probably just as good as any other old technicality, with which the criminal law is generally made a farce in this and most other states of the country. It is a little unusual however, for a judge of his own motion, to dig up hair-splitting imperfections in ‘ a legal proceedings where another judge had found everything fight and proper, and even the defend ant’s most astute attorneys had —failed to notice theiraaxistence.