Habitual Drunkenness Denned.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5279, 8 June 1895, Page 7

Habitual Drunkenness Denned.

A London comic paper represent 5 a clergyman as saying to a female parishioner that ha waa sorry to hear that her husband was an habitual drunkard, to which the lady dignifiedly retorts : " And I'm sorry, sir, to hear that you have been miscorrectly informed ; my 'usband only gets drunk when he has got any money." Curiously enough, this distinction is one which has juat bacn carefully dr.vwa by tho legal mind of Mr Justice William*., a judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria. In a case that came before him," a wife alleged habitual drunkenness as a ground of divorce from her hußbsnd, and the law of Victoria recognises that as a perfectly valid ground for dissolving the marriage tie. It. appeared, however, that this husband only got drunk once a week, on pay day, in other words, when he had ( money. The Judge thereupon remarked .*— •

"He seems to have been drunk every Saturday and Sunday, and on those occasions he became violent, and once or twice sir nek hig wife. Now, that is not the meaning of habitual drunkenness under the Act. It would be monetrous to say that that is habitual drunkenness at all. The Act means a great deal more than that. By habitual drunkenness it means that a man is a confirmed drunkard, that he is irreclaimable, and that practically he is always drunk. It is not sufficient to prove that' the man was drunk once, or twice a week. Then, aa to the respondent having beeu habitually guilty of cruelty. It appears that eoruetimes when he was the worse for drink he ill-treated hiß wife, and that is eaid to be habitual cruelty. The same observations a3 I havo made about habitual drunkenness apply here. In this case the man has neither been proved nor anything like proved to be an habitual drunkard, and he is not proved nor anything like proved to bo guilty of habitual cruelty to his wife."

This is a very liberal interpretation of the law, in favour of those violent brutes who make their wife's existence one prolonged terror. Twice a week would the Victorian Judge allow a man to get drunk and maltreat the woman he had sworn to love and cherish, and yet sho would be bound to submit to his embraces on the remaining five days. Presumably, nothing short of four outbursts in a week, and for a year or so on end, would Buffice to establish " habit," for if he were kind and sober even half his time, he could not be said to be habitually cruel and drnnk. Ib is a knowledge of legal refinements of thiß sort that convinces women that they still have wrongs to right. In Now Zealand, with ita enfranchised womanhood, not even proved violence from a drunken husband every day of hiß life can secure a woman the relief of divorce. This, we venture to think, is a Btate of things that will nob muoh longer be allowed to continue.