WIFE-TORTURE IK ENGLAND. 



51 



her with his iron clogs, and that he had delib- 

 erately broken her arm " (February 3, 1878). 



And here another (reported in the Manchester 

 Courier, February 5th), so instructive in its de- 

 tails of the motives for wife-murder, the sort of 

 woman who is murdered, the man who kills, and 

 the sentiment of juries as to what constitutes 

 " provocation" on the part of a wife, that I shall 

 extract it at length : 



MANSLAUGHTER AT DUKIN FIELD. 



" Thomas Harlow, thirty-nine, striker, Duk in- 

 field, was indicted for the manslaughter of his 

 wife, Ellen Harlow, forty-five years old, at Dukin- 

 field, on November 30, 1877. The prisoner was 

 committed by the magistrates on the charge of 

 willful murder, but the grand-jury reduced the in- 

 dictment to that of manslaughter. Air. Marshall 

 prosecuted; and the prisoner, who was unde- 

 fended by counsel, stated, in his plea, that he had 

 no intention of killing his wife when he struck her. 



" The prisoner, who was employed in and about 

 Dukinfield, lived with his wife and three children 

 in Waterloo Street, in that town. On the morning 

 of November 30th the deceased went out hawking 

 as usual, and returned shortly after twelve o'clock. 

 During the time she was away the prisoner re- 

 mained in the house sitting by the fire, and for the 

 most part drinking beer. When she returned she 

 busied herself in preparing dinner, and the pris- 

 oner went out for a short time. In the afternoon 

 the prisoner laid himself down, and slept for two 

 or three hours. About five o'clock the deceased, 

 and a lodger named Margaret Daley, and several 

 others, were sitting in the house, when the pris- 

 oner came in and asked his wife for twopence. 

 She replied that she had not twopence, and that 

 she had had trouble enough with being out hawk- 

 ing all day in the rain and hungry. He then began 

 to abuse her, and asked her for somethiug to eat. 

 She gave him some potatoes and bacon ; after eat- 

 ing the greater part of which he again began to 

 abuse her. He once more asked her for twopence, 

 and Margaret Daley, seeing there was likely to be 

 a disturbance, gave him the twopence, and told 

 him he had better get a pint of beer. Instead of 

 getting beer, however, he sent a little girl to pur- 

 chase a quantity of coal, and then recommenced 

 abusing his wife. Shortly afterward he was heard 

 to exclaim, ' There will be a life less to-Dight, and 

 I will take it.' At this time the persons who were 

 sitting in the house when the prisoner came in 

 went out, leaving Harlow, his wife, and their son 

 Thomas, and Daley together. The prisoner had 

 some further altercation with his wife, which ended 

 with him striking her a violent blow under the 

 right ear, felling her to the floor. She died in a 

 few minutes afterward, the cause of death being 

 concussion of the brain. The prisoner subse- 



quently gave himself into custody, and made a 

 statement attributing his conduct to the provoca- 

 tion his wife had given him. 



" The jury found the prisoner guilty, and rec- 

 ommended him to mercy on account of the provo- 

 cation he received. Sentence was deferred." 



I think I may now safely ask the reader to 

 draw breath after all these horrors, and agree 

 with me that they cannot, must not, be allowed 

 to go on unchecked, without some effort to stop 

 them, and save these perishing and miserable 

 creatures. Poor, stupid, ignorant women as most 

 of them are, worn out with life-long drudgery, 

 burdened with all the pangs and cares of many 

 children, poorly fed and poorly clothed, with no 

 pleasures and many pains, there is an enormous 

 excuse to be made for them even if they do some- 

 times seek in drink the oblivion of their misery — 

 a brief dream of unreal joy, where real natural 

 happiness is so far away. 1 But for those who 

 rise above these temptations, who are sober 

 where intoxication holds out their only chance of 

 pleasure ; chaste in the midst of foulness ; tender 

 mothers when their devotion calls for toilsome 

 days and sleepless Dights — for these good, indus- 

 trious, struggling women who, I have shown, are 

 the chief victims of all this cruelty — is it to be 

 borne that we should sit patiently by and allow 

 their lives to be trampled out in agony ? 



What ought to be done ? 



First, what has been done, or has been pro- 

 posed to be done, in the matter ? 



In June, 1853, an act was passed (16th Vic- 

 toria, chap. 30) entitled " An Act for the Better 

 Prevention and Punishment of Aggravated As- 

 saults upon Women and Children, and for pre- 

 venting Delay and Expense in the Administration 

 of the Criminal Law." In the preamble to this 

 act it is stated that " the present law has been 

 found insufficient for the protection of women 

 and children from violent assaults ; " and the 

 measure provides that assaults upon any female 

 or any male child — occasioning actual bodily 

 harm — may be punished by summary conviction 



1 Few people reflect how utterly devoid of pleas- 

 ures are the lives of the women of the working-class- 

 es. An excellent woman, living near Bristol, having 

 opened a Mothers' Meeting, wae surprised to find that 

 not more than one out of forty of her poor friends had 

 ever seen the sea, and not more than three had trav- 

 eled on the railway. Of course their fathers, husbands, 

 brothers, and sons, had all seen these wonders, but 

 they — never. That good woman accordingly took the 

 whole party ODe summer's day to the beach at Weston- 

 super-Mare, and the eight of their enjoyment, drew the 

 tears from her eyes— and from mine when she de- 

 scribed it. 



