A Model Judge.

Evening Star, Issue 7420, 16 January 1888, Page 4

A Model Judge.

There be wives and wives, and husbands and husbands. A case in point was tried in New York lately, where a wife had her husband arrested for assault and battery and non-support. He v. as a poor attenuated little anatomy, that a hundred-pound weight in the opposite scale would have sent flying up like a shuttlecock, while his poor injured wife was a good, healthy, beefy looking woman, who wore a forty-eight inch beltribbon and would make the steel-yards look sick at two hundred and fifty, The brutal husband was dressed in a linen duster that looked as though it might have survived the perils of the Civil >Var, and a pair of pants that needed repairing in that portion which no gentleman likes to have out of repair. His feet were encased in a pair of rubbers, and his shirt, innocent of collar, was without a button at the neck—but this is no uncommon case. The wretched wife had on a fine sealskin sacque, a beaded silk dress, a blooming high hot and feather, gold bracelets and diamond ear-rings. She looked the picture of rosy health, while her husband had his head tied up in a towel, and looked as though he had been attending a first-class Irish wake. The case was called, and the lady took the witness-stand. The Judge asked her what was the matter. She said brutal treatment and non-support, and she wanted her husband sent to the penitentiary. The Judge told her to state specifically the circumstances of the assault. She said that she had been down to Coney Island with a friend, and, being detained till the cars stopped running, she was unable to get home that night. Next day, when she did get home, her husband told her that she must not do it again ; and she told him that she'd do it as often as she liked. Then he said that he'd leave the house, and she told him that he shouldn't do it. Then he tried to get out, and she hit him over the head with a stove-lifter in self-defence. Then she doubled him up under the table, and called a policeman, and had him taken to gaol. "How about the non-support? How long since you received any money from him?" "Last week, Judge, and 1 haven't had a cent since," "How much did you receive, madam ?" " Only eighteen dollars, Judge." " How much does your husband earn per week ?" "Twenty dollars, Judge." " Then it appears you get the lion's share ?" " Well, Judge, he wouldn't tell me what he did with the other two dollars." Said the Judge, looking at the pair : " You don't look to be suffering, madam, either for clothes or food. Have you any means outside of what your husband gives you ?" " Not much, Judge." "How much?" "Five hundred and eighty dollars in the Bleecher street Savings Bank, and one hundred and seventytwo in the Seaman's." "Who owns the house you live in?" "I do." " How did you get it ?" " Husband bought it for me." " And all the money you have in the bank he gave you?" ''Yes." "Now, madam, get out of this Court as soon as you possibly can, or I may have to send you to the penitentiary for assault if your husband will make the complaint. Prisoner, you are discharged." The injured wife looked daggers at her husband and the Judge, and flounced out of Court as much as to say there is no justice left in this country,— 'Exchange.'