to pay her the sum of $260 a year, beginning January 26, 1916, in weekly payments of $5 each. Plaintiff is also given possession and use of all household furniture. Costs and a solicitor's fee of $50, defendant is also ordered to pay.

About a year after the decree was made, the defendant moved the court to modify and amend it so as to grant an absolute divorce and so as to reduce the amount of alimony. There was an answer to the petition and various affidavits appear to have been presented to the court. The prayer of the petitioner was denied by an order dated April 24, 1917. When this order was entered does not appear beyond this, that the notice of appeal therefrom describes it as entered May 9, 1917. The record before us was settled by agreement—at least appellee did not oppose and did approve it and the certificate made thereto by the circuit judge reads:

"The foregoing are all the pleadings in said cause and the affidavits, petitions, exceptions and orders made therein, and it being herein admitted that the material allegations in the bill of complaint and the answer to the cross bill contained are true, and that the said defendant is guilty of the extreme cruelty and misconduct therein charged, and that the material allegations made in the answer and cross bill of the defendant are not true, and that the petition to amend the final decree was heard on answer and affidavits in open court, and denied as herein set forth, therefore, on this 17th day of July, A. D. 1917, said proceedings above set forth, showing the pleadings, decree, petitions, affidavits and other papers on file and of record in said cause and the facts, being the entire case outside of the evidence taken in court therein, are settled and signed as a case-made and settled, pursuant to the statute and within the time prescribed by law."

We have before us none of the testimony given at the hearing of the divorce suit, but have, as is above indicated, the admission of defendant that the charges

made by his wife are true and his counter charges unfounded.

What appellant desires is a decree for divorce and it being admitted that the bill was not filed pursuant to 3 Comp. Laws, §§ 8686, 8687 (3 Comp. Laws 1915, SS 11479, 11480), he invokes the rule that the discretion of the court may be exercised, in such a case, to grant an absolute divorce against plaintiff's protest, if it seems to be for the best interests of the parties to do so. Burlage v. Burlage, 65 Mich. 624; Horning v. Horning, 162 Mich. 130. See, also, Utley v. Utley, 155 Mich. 258; Coon v. Coon, 163 Mich. 644; Lacey v. Lacey, 189 Mich. 271; Cole v. Cole, 193 Mich. 655. We said in Burlage v. Burlage, supra, that the authority, where a case is made out for a permanent separation, to grant an absolute divorce, if it appears proper to do so, was not exercised

"To meet the desire of the parties, but on grounds of public policy, to prevent the mischiefs arising from turning out into the world, in enforced celibacy, persons who are neither married or unmarried."

The discretion of the court in these, as in other, cases will be moved as the facts seem to demand. Defendant is not charged with personal abuse of the plaintiff or with failure to support her. He is charged with having committed adultery and with parading his adulterous conduct and his paramour to the shame of his wife and children. He admits the charges. Before this suit was begun, another suit was instituted, for a like reason, but it would appear the evidence to sustain the charges was not available, or it was by her assumed that it was not. In any event, upon defendant's denials she discontinued the suit and marital relations were resumed, to be again broken off when defendant's conduct forced her to take some action.

Defendant says his earnings are insufficient to support himself and pay the stipulated alimony. He is now in default in this behalf. It does not appear that

his financial condition will be improved by his remarriage. He was, when the decree was granted, a traveling salesman, earning, he says, about $65 a month. He now earns, he says, $14 a week. I am impressed that the provision for alimony is reasonable and that the order appealed from should stand. In view of all disclosed circumstances, public policy will be fairly served if defendant is permitted to continue the modest payments in aid of the support of his wife which the decree below provides for.

Order affirmed.

BIRD, MOORE, STEERE, BROOKE, FELLOWS, STONE, and KUHN, JJ., concurred.

NORTHRUP v. NORTHRUP.

DIVORCE-EXTREME CRUELTY-EVIDENCE-SUFFICIENCY.

On appeal from a decree dismissing the husband's bill for divorce, evidence on the part of plaintiff that defendant's constant nagging, scolding, and fault-finding rendered it impossible for them to live together, although plaintiff was not entirely without fault, held, sufficient to make out a case of extreme cruelty requiring reversal of the decree of the court below and one entered granting divorce.

Appeal from Wayne; North, J., presiding. Submitted January 10 1918. (Docket No. 44.) Decided March 27, 1918.

Bill by LeRoy Northrup against Cora May Northrup for a divorce. From a decree dismissing the bill,

plaintiff appeals. Reversed, and decree entered for plaintiff.

Welsh, De Foe & Kahn, for plaintiff.

James J. Noon, for defendant.

OSTRANDER, C. J. This cause was heard in April, 1916. At that time the plaintiff was 36 years of age. The parties were married in 1904, and lived together until 1914. In the ten years of cohabitation there have been three children born, but one of whom, the first born, a hopelessly deformed and physically deficient, but mentally bright, daughter, a great care, is living. The plaintiff charges his wife with extreme cruelty. Acts of physical violence are charged and the testimony for plaintiff, particularly his own testimony, tends to prove that the defendant, upon occasions, employed her hands and feet upon him in inflicting personal injury, and her tongue in vilifying and abasing him and his father. On the other hand, defendant, who denies the charges of cruelty, and who seeks no relief from the marriage contract, claims that she has been obliged to defend herself, by force, from threats and from attempts of plaintiff to strike her to slap her. An analysis of the testimony shows that whatever either party did personally, to the other, was as a rule the result of disagreements, the climax of wordy disputes. Both are reputable; the plaintiff a hardworking man, of good habits, home-loving, economical, the defendant a good housekeeper, clean and capable in a housewifely way. They had a good home, well furnished, convenient. Help, when it was needed, defendant always had. From a material standpoint, they should have prospered, as they did for a time, should have accumulated a competence, and in the course of time have been able to dismiss anxiety for the future. Their trouble, primarily, seems to be one

of mismating; secondarily, the inability of one or both of them to compromise and to adjust differences-to adapt themselves to each other. As I have said, the physical encounters were usually, if not always, the conclusion, the result, of wordy wars. Plaintiff contends that defendant's conduct, "Nagging, faultfinding, scolding, pestering the life out of me," as he puts it, with no prospect of ultimate peace, resulted finally in reducing him to a state in which he could not go on, effectively, with his business, lost his ambition, and seriously affected his health. He claims to have been fairly driven from his home by her, unable there to escape her petulant persecution, day or night. He left home once, in the night, going to a hotel for rest. He left home, finally, taking a journey of some length and a rest of some duration. Judgments were taken against him and property he owned was sold to satisfy creditors, or those he claims were creditors. He is blamed for this by counsel for defendant. That he might have avoided this, might have gone on accumulating, paid his debts, saved his property, I have no doubt, if his courage and ambition had continued. Some excerpts from defendant's testimony throw light upon the situation:

"Q. Now, on the occasion this tea-cup was thrown, you said Mr. Northrup came around the table to slap you, he was going to, but he didn't?

"A. He did.

"Q. He did slap you that time?

"A. Yes, he did.

"Q. And did he slap you with his open hand?

"A. Yes, sir.

"Q. Where did it strike you?

“A. Well, on the face, I don't remember particu

larly.

"Q. On which side?

"A. I don't remember.

"Q. Did he leave any marks?

"A. No.

200-Mich.-40.