CONTRASTS: THE YOUNG COMMISSION AGENT AND A BRAVE OLD MAN.
One of the first men to apply for a separation order under the Act was a thriving commission agent--_i.e._, a bookmaker--who had married a barmaid. His jewellery was massive, and there was all over him the appearance of being extremely well-to-do. He brought with him a solicitor to advocate his cause, and witnesses, too, were forthcoming. His young wife, when asked for her statement, did not attempt to deny that she was sometimes the worse for drink, but contented herself by saying that her husband drank a great deal more than she did, but it took less effect. She also said if she did drink, her husband was the cause of it, for he was unfaithful to her. She readily agreed to her husband's offer of £1 weekly, so the order was promptly granted, and she went her way alone. The husband, I noticed, was not so lonely, being accompanied by a well-dressed female.
The second act of this unseemly farce was played before the same court after a three months' interval. The commission agent, again fortified by his solicitor's presence, applied for an abrogation of the order made upon him for his wife's maintenance. Her lapse into immorality was duly proved, her defence--which, of course, was no defence at all--being that her husband was worse than herself, for he had been living with the woman now in court for some months. The magistrate had no option--for private opinion must not prevent the due fulfilment of the law--so the order was quashed. Henceforth the husband was free of all obligations, pecuniary or otherwise, excepting that he might not legally marry till his wife's death. Whatever her faults were, I must confess that I felt very sorry for her. Young, friendless, and homeless, she was already on that polished, inclined plane down which many are precipitated to the lowest depths, from which nothing short of a miracle could save her. A few minutes later I was speaking to her outside the court, and asking about her future, when the opulent commission agent and his expensively dressed but non-legalized wife passed us. Triumph was written on his coarse face, and, turning to his cast-off wife, he snapped his fingers in her face, and said: "I knew I should soon get rid of you!" using, of course, vulgar embellishment. To such contemptible blackguards, men without an atom of decency, this Act has provided a ready means for getting rid of wives when their company proves distasteful. But oh the chivalry of it, especially when the fellow who participated in the wife's wrong-doing comes cheerfully to give evidence against her! When I think on these things, I believe that I have some faith still in physical chastisement.