.
In this way, and also, if needful, on its own initiative, the House of
Lords provided that there should be no connivance or collusion. Care was
also taken that a proper allowance was secured to the wife in cases in
which she was not the offending party. This procedure is still pursued
in the case of Irish divorces.

It is obvious, however, that the necessity for costly proceedings before
the Houses of Parliament imposed great hardship on the mass of the
population, and there can be little doubt that this hardship was deeply
felt. Repeated proposals were made to parliament with a view to reform
of the law, and more than one commission reported on the subject. It is
said that the final impetus was given by an address to a prisoner by Mr
Justice Maule. The prisoner's wife had deserted him with her paramour,
and he married again during her lifetime. He was indicted for bigamy,
and convicted, and Mr Justice Maule sentenced him in the following
words:--"Prisoner at the bar: You have been convicted of the offence of
bigamy, that is to say, of marrying a woman while you had a wife still
alive, though it is true she has deserted you and is living in adultery
with another man. You have, therefore, committed a crime against the
laws of your country, and you have also acted under a very serious
misapprehension of the course which you ought to have pursued. You
should have gone to the ecclesiastical court and there obtained against
your wife a decree _a mensa et thoro_. You should then have brought an
action in the courts of common law and recovered, as no doubt you would
have recovered, damages against your wife's paramour. Armed with these
decrees, you should have approached the legislature and obtained an act
of parliament which would have rendered you free and legally competent
to marry the person whom you have taken on yourself to marry with no
such sanction. It is quite true that these proceedings would have cost
you many hundreds of pounds, whereas you probably have not as many
pence. But the law knows no distinction between rich and poor. The
sentence of the court upon you, therefore, is that you be imprisoned for
one day, which period has already been exceeded, as you have been in
custody since the commencement of the assizes." The grave irony of the
learned judge was felt to represent truly a state of things well-nigh
intolerable, and a reform in the law of divorce was felt to be
inevitable. The hour and the man came in