WIFE-TORTURE IN ENGLAND. 



39 



dium of the experience of hundreds of ladies on 

 their travels. The genuine and self-sacrificing 

 kindness of English and American gentlemen 

 toward women affords almost a ludicrous contrast 

 to the florid politeness, compatible with every de- 

 gree of selfishness, usually exhibited by men of 

 other European nations. The reflection, then, is 

 a puzzling one. How does it come to pass that, 

 while the better sort of Englishmen are thus ex- 

 ceptionally humane and considerate to women, 

 the men of the lower class of the same nation are 

 proverbial for their unparalleled brutality, till 

 wife-beating, wife-torture, and wife-murder, have 

 become the opprobrium of the land ? How does 

 it happen (still more strange to note) that the 

 same generous-hearted gentlemen, who would 

 themselves fly to render succor to a lady in dis- 

 tress, yet read of the beatings, burnings, kick- 

 ings, and " cloggings," of poor women wellnigh 

 every morning in their newspapers without once 

 setting their teeth, and saying: "This must be 

 stopped ! We can stand it no longer ? " 



The paradox truly seems worthy of a little 

 investigation. What reason can be alleged, in 

 the first place, why the male of the human spe- 

 cies, and particularly the male of the finest varie- 

 ty of that species, should be the only animal in 

 creation which maltreats its mate, or any female 

 of its own kind? x 



1 With the exception, perhaps, of the seal. Mr. 

 Darwin gives a sad picture of amphibious conjugal 

 life: " As soon aa a female reaches the shore (' comes 

 out,' as we should say in ' society'), the nearest male 

 goes down to meet her, making meanwhile a noise like 

 the clucking of a hen to her chickens. He bows to 

 her and coaxes her, until he gets between her and the 

 water so that she cannot escape him. Then his man- 

 ner changes, and with a harsh growl he drives her to 

 a place in his harem " (" Descent of Man," vol. ii., p. 

 269.) What an " o'er true tale " is this of many a hu- 

 man wooing and of what comes later; the "bowing 

 and coaxing" first, and the "harsh growl" after- 

 ward ! I am surprised Mr. Darwin did not derive 

 from it an argument for the descent of man from the 

 seal. 



It is very instructive f.o watch the behavior of a big 

 male dog undergoing the experience which is under- 

 stood to surpass the limits of a man's endurance; 

 namely, being " nagged" by a little vixen who stands 

 opposite to him in an attitude exactly corresponding 

 to the "arms akimbo" of her human prototype, and 

 pours out volleys of barking which would, obviously, 

 in the police conrts be reported as " abusive language." 

 The much-tried clog— let us say a retriever or New- 

 foundland—who could annihilate his little female as- 

 sailant—a toy terrier or Pomeranian, perhaps — in two 

 mouthful?, and who would do so in the case of an en- 

 emy of his own sex— always on these occasions starts 

 aside with well-feigned surprise, as if astonished at 

 the reception of his advances ; lifts his ears as a gen- 



To get to the bottom of the mystery we must 

 discriminate between assaults of men on other 

 men ; assaults of men on women who are not 

 their wives ; and assaults of men on their wives. 

 I do not think I err much if I affirm that, in com- 

 mon sentiment, the first of these offenses is con- 

 siderably more heinous than the second — being 

 committed against a more worthy person (as the 

 Latin grammar itself instructs boys to think) ; and, 

 lastly, that the assault on a woman who is not a 

 man's wife is worse than the assault on a wife by 

 her husband. Toward this last or minimum of- 

 fense a particular kind of indulgence is indeed ex- 

 tended by public opinion. 1 The proceeding seems 

 to be surrounded by a certain halo of jocosity which 

 inclines people to smile whenever they hear of a 

 case of it (terminating anywhere short of actual 

 murder), and causes the mention of the subject 

 to conduce rather than otherwise to the hilarity 

 of a dinner-party. The occult fun thus connected 

 with wife-beating forms by no means indeed the 

 least curious part of the subject. Certainly, in 

 view of the state of things revealed by our crim- 

 inal statistics, there is something ominous in the 

 circumstance that "Punch" should have been 

 our national English street-drama for more than 

 two centuries. Whether, as some antiquarians 

 tell us, Judas Iscariot was the archetypal Polici- 



tleman raises his hat, and presently bounds away 

 lightly: "I beg your pardon, madam. I am the last 

 dog in the world, I assure you, to offend a lady ! " Be 

 it noted that if that dog had retreated before the bul- 

 lying of another male dog, he would have slunk off 

 with his tail between his legs, ashamed of his own 

 poltroonery. But from the female termagant he re- 

 tires with all the honors of war, and with his tail held 

 aloft like a standard ; quite conscious that he is acting 

 as becomes a dog and a gentleman. 



1 Not universally I am glad to hear. In Yorkshire 

 and several other counties a very old custom exists, 

 or did exist as late as 1862, called "Riding the Stans" 

 or "Rough Music," which consists in giving a sere- 

 nade with cows' horns, and warming-pans, and tea_ 

 kettles, to a man known to have beaten his wife or 

 been unfaithful to her. (See a very curious account of 

 it and of its good effects, in Chambers's "Book of 

 Days," vol. ii., p. 510.) A correspondent kindly sends 

 further details, from which it appears that there is al- 

 ways a sort of herald or orator on the occasion, who, 

 when the procession halts before the delinquent's 

 house, recites verses in this style : 



"There is a man in this place, 

 (piano) Has beat his wife [a pause] 



(fortissimo) Has beat his wife ! 



"'Tis a very great shame and disgrace 

 To all who live in the place," etc. 



The custom derives its name from the old Scottish 

 " stange"— a long pole on which the culprit is some- 

 times made to take a very disagreeable ride. 



