ERRANT HUSBANDS

Dominion, Volume 17, Issue 290, 24 August 1923, Page 6

ERRANT HUSBANDS

MANY REPORTED MISSING AN EVER-RECURRING QUESTION Some strong comments were made at the Hospital Board meeting yesterday on the number of husbands who had left their families in Wellington without any provision for their support and had sought shelter elsewhere. Tire Social Welfare Committee reported that the ever recurring question of deserting heads of families had engaged the attention of the committee during the past month, efforts having been made to deal with, at least, some of the cases. The committee, however, found its path beset with obstacles, and these not so much through lack of suitable legislation as from the difficulty of securing the application of what already existed. Among the cases dealt with was one of a wife and three young children who had been dependent upon the board continuously since May 7, and intermittently since Jul.V , through the failure of the husband, an able bodied man and a carpenter, to provide for their maintenance. Recently a fresh maintenance order was made' ’against this man which he, as usual, disregarded. Proceedings for disobedience were promoted by the committee, but the man, appealing with a story of inability to obtain payment for work alleged to have been done, succeeded in obtaining an adjournment for a month. At the end of that time the whole process of discovering his whereabouts, etc., would have to be repeated, and as he would probably have moved to another place in the meantime the chances of any satisfaction to his dependants or the board were very remote. uThe chairman of the committee (Mr. Petherick) said that was a. typical case —there were dozens of others. Mr. C. H. Chapman said that there were fully twenty-four cases of the sorL In one instance, after they had located the man, the police refused to bring him back until the board had deposited £3O to cover the expenses. The report was adopted.