WOMAN DRIVEN TO DESPERATION

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6803, 5 January 1929, Page 9

WOMAN DRIVEN TO DESPERATION

FAMILY’S DESTITUTION. HUSBAND ORDERED TO PAY MAINTENANCE. Per Press Association. AUCKLAND, Last Night. Desperation was said to have driven Mrs. Ida Emma Malcolm, of Henderson, to attempt to take her life recently in' the hope that her five children, who were destitute, would be eared for prdpcrly. When charged In the Police Court with attempting to commit suicido, Mrs. Malcolm sat on a chair in front of the dock, in which her husband, Harold Malcolm, aged 27, a motor driver, who had been arrepted on a charge of failing to maintain hi* wife and family was standing. Application was made by the wife for separation, maintenance and guardianship orders to bo made against her husband on the ground of failure to maintain. It was stated that for 12 months Malcolm had not provided his wife with money, and that whenever the social workers took articles to Mra. Malcolm for herself and the children, the man would take the goods. In reply to the magistrate, Mr. F. K. Hunt, Malcolm said ho was earning over £4 a week. "Imprisonment is what a man of this kind deserves,” said the magistrate. "But ho is. earning a steady wage and should pay something to his wife and children. I will grant the orders in favour of liis wife and order him to pay maintenance at the rate of £2 15s a week. If he gets in arrear he will serve six months’ imprisonment.”

With regard to tho charge againsl the wife, Major Annio Gordon, female probation officer, said tho woman had been driven by desperation. Sho thought if slio were out of the way someono would have to take care of her babies as they should ho cared for, '•I understand perfectly,'’ said the magistrate in convicting and ordering the woman to come up for sentence if called upon within 12 months.