Pulling Up the Wives.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XVIII, Issue 1764, 27 November 1885, Page 2

Pulling Up the Wives.

Thebe are a number of scoundrels in this colony who desert their wives and families, and leave them either to starve or be supported by public charity. The wretches who are deliberately guilty of such base and heartless conduct deserve to be whipped at the cart’s tail, or flogged at the gaol triangle with the cat o’ nine tails, wielded by a.steady turnkey. But there is also another side to the question. What about the wives who desert their husbands and children? Shouldn’t they also be apprehended, brought back and punished in some way ? Well, the question is a difficult one to answer. A woman with any heart at all will rarely desert her children, unless she has previously gone to the bad altogether. A woman might through various causes be ready to leave her husband, but her children cling round her very heart strings, and she would, only under great stress, desert them. But of course there are exceptions, and some women will desort both husband and children vith but little scruple. It appears that a wile doing this can be apprehended and brought' back to the place from which she had absconded. Mr Beetham, E.M., of Christchurch, recently issued a warrant for the apprehension of a woman who hud run away from her husband and children. The warrant was issued under the Destitute Persons Act, and Mr Beetham remarked that he thought this was the first occasion when such a step was taken. But when, as in the case under consideiation, it was shown that the children would become a charge upon the State because the father, a laboring man, cou.dnot bimself attend to them, Mr Beetham thought the Destitute Persons Act applied as much to .runaway wives and mother's as to runaway husbands and fathers. The logic of Mr Beetham is indisputable. 11 What Is sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander," and so wives who cut and run from their laborer busbuuds and leave them in the lurch with a lot of children to attend to, are, very justly, to be brought back again by the police.