THE SEAMY SIDE.

Thames Star, Volume LIX, Issue 16624, 21 October 1925, Page 7

THE SEAMY SIDE.

TALES TOLD TO MAGISTRATE. WIFE NOT ALLOWED OUT. (By R. E. Corder, in the London Daily Mail). If the frailties of human nature had never necessitated the invention of police courts, the present housing shortage would surely have compelled it. Every day London magistrates listen to stories some of them comic, most of them more than a little tragic —of domesic discord resulting from the failure of married couples to find a home of their own. To Mr. Clarke Hall, the magistrate at Old Street, came yesterday, a youthful mother with blackened eyes, filled with tears, and a child in her arms. The police court missionary stood beside her. “She was married fifteen months ago,” he told the magistrate by way of introduction, “but owing to the shortage of houses she went back to her mother to live, and the husband has gone back to his father. Now she has left her mother and has gone to live with on aunt.” The magistrate studied the young woman’s swollen face. “But how di that happen?” he asked with an indicative nod. “My own mother blacked my eyes for me ,because I went out with my husband,” she answered. “You see sir. I am not allowed to go out when I like.” Mr. Charles Hall’s eyebrows lifted incredulously. “Surely,” he observed, “that’s not very reasonable!” “No, but it's the truth, sir,’ the applicant rejoined, and added that her mother would not permit her to take away some furniture which belonged to her and her husband. “I rather fancy,’ put in the court missionary, “that this young woman gave her mother something to go on with, too!” ' f However, she was granted two summonses against her mother—one for assault and the other for unlawful detention of her goods. When it came to paying for the summonses the applicant fumbled hesitatingly' at her purse, but she produced the money with alacrity when the magistrate assured her that she would get it back if it were proved she was in the right.

A woman who struggled into the witness-box with a blissfully sleeping baby boy- in lier arms cast a doubtful glance round the court before addressing the magistrate in a quietly confidential voice. “It’s like this, sir,” she almost whispered, “I got a separation Horn my husband, but for nine years he has paid me nothing. I have no idea where he is. I’ve heard nothing of him. He has vanished.” She added a few more words which no one but the magistrate heard, and he shook liis head over them. ‘.‘All 1 can tell you,” he said to her, “is that if you marry again you cannot he prosecuted for bigamy; hut if your husband turns up it won’t be a marriage at all. And”—he emphasised warninglv ‘if you‘ have children they will he illegitimate. If you marry again, therefore, you marry at your own risk.” The woman puckered her brows in thought for a moment, then “Thank you very much sir,,” she said brightly, and walked briskly <out of the court. * * * * “Her husband summoned my husband, and ” “Never mind all that,” Mr. Clarke Hall broke in on an excited woman’s vague prelude to an application for a summons against a neighbour. “Tell me what happened,’ ’ She needed no second invitation and launched on a recital, liberally punctuated witli “indeed she dids,” of how the neighbour annoyed lier. “She keeps throwing out ‘snags’ to me, sir,” she declared, “and if she isn’t doing it in the ‘pub,’ she’s doing it in the back garden. And you see, sir,” she pointed out ingeniously, “my husband has been hound over, so he can’t do anything, so she’s trying to unset me.” A police officer suggested that the applicant “imagined the other woman was talking about her.” The magistrate comforted her with a promise to send an officer to talk to the neighbour. “But what does it matter what she says?” he remarked philosophically. “Don’t take any notice of it—people say unpleasant things about all of us!” # ■ .* * * “When he is drunk he is dangerous?” the magistrate inquired when a long-married woman complained that her husband came home drunk every night. “Dangerous?” she echoed. “Lor’, sir, he’s terrible I’ve got several children,” she added, “and they know all about it.” The magistrate, granting a summons, told her to bring the children along to tell him “all about it.” “Ye—s,” the woman agreed hesitatingly. “But, sir, they are very nice, children, and I don’t know whether they would like to come here.” “Oh. they wouldn’t mind,” the magistrate assured her, hut she suggested that there was doubt about it—they being such “nice children.” Ultimately a compromise was reached. the applicant consenting to bring a daughter. **

Some people have a pathetic faith in the powers of magistrates, believing them to be limitless. A grey-haired old woman, pale and wan, tottered to the magistrate’s desk with a plea that he should bring home lier soldier son. “Me fits are cornin’ on‘ me terrible bad,” she quavered, “and, oh, sir. I do wish niv bov was with me.” It was elicited that the son was on foreign serwice and that his time expired in December. “I’m afraid I can do nothing for you,” Mr. Clarke Hall told her. sympathetically. and the old woman retraced her feeble steps to the door.