A DOMESTIC DISAGREEMENT.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3599, 24 January 1883, Page 4

A DOMESTIC DISAGREEMENT.

A somcAvhat amusing domestic drama, recently enacted in the Borough road, London, islhus described by a Home paper of the 29th November: —"A drama has recently been enacted in the modest and unpretending thoroughfare known as the Borough road, which puts into the shade jill that had previously been conceived by poet. playAvright. or ballad maker. Mrs Georgiua Bell, avlio for ten years past had been married to a spouse to whom she bad presented five pledges of her atiection, apparently has not alhnved time or circumstance to dim the holy flame of love. AYe arc told that 'in her first passion Avoman loves her lover, in all the others all she loves is love.' Mrs Bell had never got over that first stage, but she found to her sorrow that her husband did not very covd'ally reciprocate her affection. For a longtime, as the good woman pathetically remarked, Air Robert Bell bad behaved very cruelly toAvards her, and this cruelty was apt to take an eccentric form. Not less eccentric, hoAvcvcr, ay.-is Airs Bell's subsequent dcA'ice for recovering her husband's lost devotion. She resolved to make him furiously jealous. Noav, jealousy is a very delicate weapon to handle. Rightly and judiciously used, it may strengthen the passion of love. So contradictory is woman** nature that she has before iioav observed to her lover: 'If you Avere to threaten me, and be cross Avith inc. and to tell me not to do such and such a thing. I should instantly long to do it; if, however, you said do as you please and suit yourself, my desire for mischief or my curiosity Avould be crushed.' A little jealousy is, no doubt, the spice that seasons love to the taste of man or Avoman : but, as iv the employment of other spices, it is necessary to lie careful not to overdo it. Airs Bell, misguided lady, used far too much seasoning, as the sequel of the heart-rending tale discloses. AVith the view of g'.-ntly sliinulatiug the Availing affection of her AvayAvard lord, and of making him think more of his homo, she Avrote on a piece of paper these fatal Avords: 'Dear Fred, I could not meet you last night, as promised, as he has returned.' This most compromising document the innocent Avife left in an artless fashion on the table. Her husband naturally discovered it, and, with an inconsistency that never entered into the most extravagant calculation of Airs Bell, the gentle diplomatist, he Avas no longer Avhat Air Gilbert has called ' Oh ! amorous dove ! type of Ovidius Na.so,' but, on the contrary. Avas transformed into a raging lion. His Avife Avas not the only A-ictim. Not content witli abusing her, he pulled their little boy out of bed and commenced to beat him. AVhen the mother interfered the Borough road Othello treated her almost as ill as the Moor did the hapless Desdeiuona. Seizing her by the wrists he injured her severely, and then he vented his vengeance on the unoffending furniture. He smashed everything iv the place, and croAvned bis deeds of A'iolcnce by takinghis Avife's bed a.Avay, so that the last state of Queen's Buildings, Borough road, was decidcly Averse than the first. Neglect was bad enough, but violence Avas more appalling still, and the wretched Avoman, looking upon her ill-used child, her damaged Avrists, her broken furniture, and her lost bed, probably regretted the fatal hour when she penned that provoking missive about the affectionate consideration of the nivthical 'Fred.' "AVhen this matrimonial squabble came up for hearing' before the magistrate, that worthy gentleman had a very difficult and knotty point to decide. It is a rash thing at any time to interpose in any quarrel, and one of the almost invariable results of siding Avith a Avoman against, her husband is to be roundly abused by the Avife. The abitrator in this case delicately approached bis task. Having heard one side of the story he was bound to listen to the other, Avhcreupon Mr Robert Bell gave a catalogue of his own personal distresses with a considerable amount of plausibility. The indignant husband argued Avith irresistible force that the compromising' document was 'quite enough to aggravate any man.' He protested that 'Fred' Avas no shadow at all, but a very inconvenient substance, and suggested that his Avife's ingenuity, fed upon stage plays and romances, had invented an excuse to shield the coporeal Frederick. It all turned upon the problematical Fred, the wife maintaining that he had no more definite existence than Airs 'Aarris, the husband exhibiting the tell-tale paper and declaring that this Avas proof positive of Dcsdeinona's disloyalty. From this point the case might have dragged its slow length along for ever and been incapable of settlement, had not the magistrate dexterously avoid a decision on the main and disputed facts. 'Fred' might remain a. myth so far as the law Avas concerned, but still there was the assault to be disposed of. No subtlety of argument Avould explain away the furniture that had been splintered into firewood and the matrimonial couch that had been abstracted. 'A plague o' both your houses,' evidently thought the SoufliAvark magistrate, and he proceeded to bind over Air Bell to keep the peace for six months, Fred or no Fred, hinting charitably at the same time that he the magistrate, belicA'ed Bell's ' conduct was caused by drink.' "