MAGISTERIAL.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 7065, 17 January 1891, Page 3

MAGISTERIAL.

CHRISTCHURCH. This Day. (Before R. Beetham, Esq., R.M., and H. J. Hall, Esq.) Drunkenness. — Thomas Kank, charged with this offence, was fined ss.

Maintenance. — Mrs Emma "Watson applied for an order against her husband, Joh a Bruce Watson, for the maintenance of her four children, and their custody, on the ground of his gross cruelty and habitual drunkenness. Mr Kippenberger prosecuted, and Mr Cresswell defended. The evidence of the complainant, a young woman, was to the effect that she had been married to him for fourteen months. He was at the time a widower with four children, and she had two of her own, which she received 17s a week for th 6 maintenance of. Shortly after marriage her husband began to use her badly, and during the last four months he had been drinking heavily. He used very bad language frequently in the presence of the children, and without the slightest necessity or provocation. He frequently beat her. She had been compelled to leave the house last Monday, owing to his beating her, and she had stayed with a neighbour since then. A quantity of evidence was taken in support of the wife's statement, and the defendant had no defence to offer. In answer to the Bench, the defendant Baid he had a house of his own and JEISO in the Savingß Bank. The Magistrate, in giving Wb decision on the case, commented at length upon the aggravated nature of the charge as Bhown by the evidence. It often

happened that cases of this kind did not come before the Court, and the man escaped punishment by the wife forgiving him. Bat in this instance the man hud gone back to his drunkm habits, aud had made his home wretched through them. This case differed from ordinary oaee, 18 the man had property, while in the usual ca=es the wile and children had to suffer if the man were seat to prison. Addressing the accused, Mr Beetbam said :— " There is nothing else to bring you to a sense of your position but a heavy punishment. You have turued_ what might have been a happy home into a pandemonium through your drunkenness. I shall therefore order you to pay .£1 a week towards the maintenance j of your wife and lGi a week to be shared I equally amonget your four children, and ■ you will be imprisoned vuk hard labour in the common, gaol for three months. I hope that will prove a lesson to you and, through you, to scores and hundreds of Others in this town who, like yturaelf, satief'y their beastly appetite for drink, and make their wives and families suffer."