Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1888-10-27
FOR DESERTED WIVES.
The Odd Set of Books Kept by New York
Police Court Sergeants.

Police Court Sergeants.
To be a sergeant in a police court in
wolves peculiar and somewhat bur-
densome duty, that of acting as banker
for the receipt and disbursement of
the weekly stipends paid by husbands
to deserted wives. A sergeant is fort
innate if he has not above thirty such
bookkeeping accounts on his list,
and in busy court the number may
run up to one hundred and fifty or one
hundred and seventy-fve. The obli-
CATION of the husband to support his
wife assumes not romantic aspect in
a police court. The obligation is not
to the woman as her desert for serv-
ices rendered or for affections sake,
but to the city, that it may not have
pauper on its hands. This attitude
of self-defense of the community as
against the husband colors the pro-
ceedings which woman must go
through before she can compel her hus-
band to provide for her. The first step
involved is visit to the commissi oners
of charities and correction and an APP
plication for arequisition from them on
the police justice in her district requir-
ing him to issue an abandonment war
rant for the arrest of the delinquent
husband. The law being framed di-
rectly to pre- vent the increase of pau
pers and not to punish the man, tho
wife is called upon to swear on the face
of the warrant that she will be a
charge on the public unless her hus-
band supports her. That is all she has
to do with the matter as principal.
In the police court it is the city against
the husband, with the wife merely as q
witness. She is called upon to testify
q second time that she is in the posi-
ton of pauper and that the city will
have to support her if her husband
does not. Under such circumstances the
amount awarded the woman is seldom
large, the object being simply to keep
her out of the poor-house. The weekly
sum which the husband is put under
bonds to pay her varies according to
his wages, but more closely accord
ing to the ages of her children,
whether they can work and help
support her-or, whether she can
get work and support herself. Four
dollars a week, or Sc, is as high as it
often gets, and sometimes it is not
above $3.50 or So. Women who brace
themselves for weeks to submit to the
Notifying ordeal of swearing out such
warrants against their husbands are
sometimes surprised to learn the exact
basis of the law. If man has beaten
woman and made her life an almost
insupportable burden to her but as
serts that he has not abandoned her,
that he will go home with her and live
with her, then that woman is not in
danger of becoming pauper and the
police.justice, though he may feel the
utmost compassion for her, can only
tell her to go home with him and have
him up for assault if he beats her.
The woman often will not venture to
appeal to the court again, for
an assault complaint, she hav-
ing learned that any other is use
less, will mean her husbands i'm
prisonment and stoppage of the family
income. The man very naturally
comes to the conclusion that whatever
he does his wife will have to put up
with it and acts for the future very
much as he pleases. A man who has a
decent income has his wife even more
in his power. She imagines she can
secure his punishment for deserving
her for prettier face than her own.
She tries. She opens her eyes when
she finds the abandonment warrants
open the door to 50 many dollars a
week only. If he can support two
women that is his business, not the
courts. He gives bonds to secure her
bread, with not too much butter, and
goes back to his newer flame. 1t is
couples of this sort largely for whom
the police sergeant is banker. They
don't care to meet personally, and the
court official collects, pays and takes
the receipts 1t is getting to be quite
a business in its way.-N. Y. Mail and
| Eo-nroee