46 



TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTELY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



women of the " kicking districts." They are 

 mostly, poor souls, very coarse, very unwoman- 

 ly. Some of them drink whenever they can pro- 

 cure drink. Some are bad and cruel mothers 

 (we cannot forget the awful stories of the Burial 

 Clubs) ; many are hopelessly depraved, and lead 

 as loose lives as their male companions. Many 

 keep their houses in a miserable state of dirt and 

 disorder, neglect their children, and sell their 

 clothes and furniture for gin. Not seldom will 

 one of these reckless creatures pursue her hus- 

 band in the streets with screams of abuse and 

 jeers. The man knows not where to turn to es- 

 cape from the fury. When he comes home at 

 night, he probably finds her lying dead-drunk on 

 the bed, and his children crying for their supper. 

 Again, in a lesser degree, women make their 

 homes into purgatories by their bad tempers. 

 There was in old times a creature recognized by 

 law as a " common scold," for whom the punish- 

 ment of ducking in the village horse-pond was 

 formally provided. It is to be feared her species 

 is by no means to be reckoned among the " ex- 

 tinct Mammalia." Then comes the "nagging" 

 wife, immortalized as " Mrs. Caudle ; " the wor- 

 rying, peevish kill-joy, whose presence is a wet 

 blanket — nay, a wet blanket stuck full of pins ; 

 the argumentative woman, with a voice like a file 

 and a face like a ferret, who bores on, night and 

 day, till life is a burden. 1 



These are terrible harpies. But it is scarcely 

 fair to assume that every woman who is accused 

 of " nagging " necessarily belongs to their order. 

 I have no doubt that every husband who comes 

 home with empty pockets, and from whom his 

 wife needs to beg repeatedly for money to feed 

 herself and her children, considers that she 

 " nags" him. I have no doubt that when a wife 

 reproaches such a husband with squandering his 

 wages in the public-house, or on some wretched 

 rival, while she and her children are starving, he 

 accuses her to all his friends of intolerable " nag- 

 ging," and that, not seldom having acquired from 

 him the reputation of this kind of thing, the ver- 



1 1 have seen a woman like this tormenting a great, 

 good-natured hobbledehoy, who unhappily belonged 

 to Carlyle's order of "Inarticulate ones," and found 

 it impossible to avoid being caught every five minutes 

 in the Socratic elenchus, which she set for him like a 

 trap whenever he opened his mouth. At length, when 

 this had lasted the larger part of a rainy day, the poor 

 boy, who had seemed for some time on the verge of 

 explosion, suddenly sprang from his chair, seized the 

 little woman firmly though gently round the waist, 

 carried her out into the hall, and came back to his 

 seat, making no remark on the transaction. Who 

 could blame him ? 



diet of " Serve her right " is generally passed 

 upon her by public opinion when her "nagging " 

 is capitally punished by a broken head. 



But all women of the humblest class are not 

 those terrible creatures, drunken, depraved, or 

 ill-tempered, or even addicted to " nagging." On 

 the contrary, I can affirm from my own expe- 

 rience, as well, I believe, as that of all who have 

 had much to do with the poor of great cities, 

 there are among them at least as many good 

 women as bad — as many who are sober, honest, 

 chaste, and industrious, as are the contrary. 

 There is a type which every clergyman, and mag- 

 istrate, and district visitor will recognize in a 

 moment as very common — a woman generally 

 small and slight of person, but alert, intelligent, 

 active morning, noon, and night, doing the best 

 her strength allows to keep her home tidy, and 

 her children neat and well fed, and to supply her 

 husband's wants. Her face was, perhaps, pretty 

 at eighteen ; by the time she is eight-and-twenty, 

 toil, and drudgery, and many children, have re- 

 duced her to a mere rag, and only her eyes retain 

 a little pathetic relic of beauty. This woman ex- 

 presses herself well and simply : it is a special 

 " note " of her character that she uses no violent 

 words, even in describing the worst injuries. 

 There is nothing " loud " about her in voice, 

 dress, or manners. She is emphatically a decent, 

 respectable woman. Her only fault, if fault it 

 be, is that she will insist on obtaining food and 

 clothing for her children, and that when she is 

 refused them she becomes that depressed, bro- 

 ken-spirited creature whose mute, reproachful 

 looks act as a goad, as I have said, to the pas- 

 sions of her oppressor. We shall see presently 

 what part this class of women plays in the hor- 

 rible domestic tragedies of England. 



We have now glanced at the conditions un- 

 der which wife-beating takes place, at the incen- 

 tives immediately leading to it, the men who 

 beat, and the women who are beaten. Turn we 

 now to examine more closely the thing itself. 



There are two kinds of wife-beating which I 

 am anxious the reader should keep clearly apart 

 in his mind. There is what may be called wife- 

 beating by combat, and there is wife-beating prop- 

 erly so called, which is only wife, and not wife- 

 and-husband beating. In the first, both parties 

 have an equal share. Bad words are exchanged, 

 then blows. The man hits, the woman perhaps 

 scratches and tears. If the woman generally 

 gets much the worst of it, it is simply because 

 cats are weaker than dogs. The man cannot so 

 justly be said to have "beaten" his wife as to 



