"NICE WOMAN."

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 83, 10 April 1922, Page 5

"NICE WOMAN."

A DISGRACEFUL RECORD. ASSAULTS HUSBAXD IN COURT. Margaret J. Rutherford, who was remanded on Saturday on a charge of having been drunk and disorderly, appeared again at the Police Court this morning. Her husband, who the police said, had tried in vain to reform the woman, came forward in response to an inquiry by the magistrate, and as he passed the dock his wife leaned over the dock rail and dealt him a vicious blow on the back of the head. He dodged a second by d ticking low. "'Nice woman:" remarked Mr. Poynton, S.M. "She's no good to mc," said the husband. "'According to the evidence she goes about in a drunken condition with drunken sailors."" said Mr. Poynton. "It has been suggested that she should he sent to the island, but I would not think of a woman like that to the island. There are decent, respectable women there whose only failing is drink. The question is what to do with her. It we let her go she will resume her habits, a menace to the 'health of the community." "t will have absolutely nothing to do with he r again." said the husband. "1 am <joing to divorce her." "That is the proper thing for you to do," rejoined Mr. Poynton. ""She can 6 be let loose to go about and spread disease." "I have done my best for her. I can do no more," said the husband. "She has been sleeping on the boats with sailors." declared Sergt. Rowell — "an awful woman!" "She has a long and disgraceful list." observed Mr. Poynton. "It includes convictions as a rogue and vagabond and incorrigible rogue. She is quite hopeless. She is sentenced to a month's imprisonment and ordered to undergo a further period of twelve months' reformative detention."

The woman then made a desperate attempt to climb over the dock rails with the evident intention of further assailing her husband, and it took throe policemen to remove her from the Court —one of them getting a fierce thump on the" jaw in the process.