WIFE-TORTURE IN ENGLAND. 



57 



little less than that of placing them in the other. 

 When a child is killed by one of these drunken 

 savages — as the illegitimate child of George Hill, 

 whom he knocked on the head with a hammer in 

 revenge for having an affiliation order made on 

 him ; or as the child of six years old whom James 

 Parris murdered because its mother failed to keep 

 an appointment — or when a child is cruelly in- 

 jured, as the poor little girl into whose breast 

 Ashton Keefe thrust a box full of ignited matches 

 because she had been slow in fetching his beer 

 — when these outrages occur wc are indignant 

 enough with the offenders ; but, if they had pre- 

 viously betrayed their tiger instincts, is there no 

 guilt attaching to those who left these defense- 

 less creatures in their dens? For both the chil- 

 dren's sakes and the mothers' this clause of the 

 bill, then, appears of paramount importance — in 

 fact, a sine qua non of any measure possessing 

 practical value. 



Lastly, as regards the alimony for the wife, 

 and the maintenance for the children, to be paid 

 by the husband after the term of his imprison- 

 ment, I presume the justice of the provision will 

 not be disputed. The man obviously cannot wipe 

 away his natural obligations by the commission 

 of a deed of cruel violence, and it would be a 

 most dangerous lesson to let him think he could 

 do so. The difficulty of course lies in enforcing 

 such an order in the case of those lowest classes 

 of artisans and laborers who can move freely 

 from place to place, obtaining employment any- 

 where with the help of a bag of tools, or tramp- 

 ing the country from workhouse to workhouse. 

 In the case of affiliation orders it is, I understand, 

 found pretty uniformly that the small tradesmen, 

 and men having a fixed business, pay their weekly 

 dole fairly regularly, thereby minimizing the scan- 

 dal ; but the lower and looser sort of men decamp, 

 and are lost sight of sooner or later, the poor-law 

 authorities rarely troubling themselves to look 

 after them. The same resource of escape will 

 undoubtedly be sought by not a few separated 

 husbands should the bill before us become law. 

 The evil is serious, but perhaps not so serious or 

 irremediable as it may appear. In the first place 

 the poor-law authorities or the police might 

 surely be stirred to put in motion the machinery 

 which lies ready to hand in case of greater 

 crimes. A man was whipped last January by 

 order of the Recorder of Hereford, under the Act 

 5 George IV., c. 83, for leaving his wife and 

 children four times, and throwing them on the 

 Union. It would be a useful lesson to impress 

 pretty generally the fact that such legal responsi- 



bilities cannot be shirked in England with im- 

 punity. 1 



Secondly, there are few of these beaten wives 

 who would not be far better off separated from 

 their husbands, even if they never received a far- 

 thing of maintenance, than they are under their 

 present condition, or would be under liability to 

 their occasional raids and incursions. Such wom- 

 en (as I have maintained so often) are nearly 

 always the bread-winners of the family. They 

 have usually been for months or years earning 

 their children's subsistence and their own, and 

 very often that of their husbands besides. The 

 withdrawal of this supposed conjugal "support" 

 accordingly means the withdrawal of a minus 

 quantity. They will find themselves where they 

 were, with this difference, that they will not see 

 their husbands reeling home to empty their scanty 

 cupboards — chartered robbers, as scores of such 

 husbands are. It is true the sole charge of their 

 children will devolve on them, but (and this is a 

 reflection which goes far further into the matter 

 than I can pursue it) they will have no more 

 children than those already born. Women never 

 reach the bottom of the abyss of their misery 

 save when the pangs and weaknesses of child- 

 bearing and child-nursing are added to their bur- 

 dens, and when to the outrage of their tyrant's 

 blows is joined the deeper degradation of bearing 

 him children year by year, to furnish fresh vic- 

 tims of bis cruelty, and to rivet their chains. 

 The subject is too revolting to be dwelt upon 

 here. 



Of course it is not difficult to find objections 

 to the proposed measure. I have already re- 

 ferred to, and I hope satisfactorily answered, that 

 which rests on the supposed difficulty of intrust- 

 ing a single police magistrate or justices in Petty 

 Sessions with such powers as are given them in 

 the bill. As no complaints have ever been pub- 

 lished of their frequent use of analogous power 

 in cases of desertion, I know not why we should 

 anticipate them in those of brutal assault. 



Again, objections have been taken to the bill 

 on the ground that cases of collusion might occur 

 under its provisions. It has been suggested, for 

 example, that a wife desiring to get rid of her 

 husband might designedly provoke him to beat 

 her, and that she might prefer taking the beating, 

 and so obtaining both his money and release from 



1 Perhaps the best plan as regards the maintenance 

 for a wife would be (as suggested by an experienced 

 magistrate) that the money should be paid through, 

 and recoverable by. the relieving officer of the parish. 

 This would afford her much greater security, and ob- 

 viate the chance of collision with the husband. 



