The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-25

Court of Domestic Relations presents, however. Magistrate Curran tells with a smile of a family dispute which recently was brought to his atten- ton. The man refused to support his wife and children simply because they disagreed as to whether they should order the beer by the bottle or the case. This disagreement was easily adjusted.
 ''The original aim of this court was to save the city money" explained Magistrate Curran. That aim was a heartless one, far different from the present one. Now to save the city money by forcing the husband to take care of his wife is the least of our work. It is their home and their happiness which we must save to- day"
 A new building for the Court of Domestic Relations is the next step which Magistrate Curran hopes for. He feels that the present facilities for caring for the mothers and babies who come here are far from ade- quate and that larger quarters are needed.
 She was a tall, angular woman clad in a clean, faded gingham dress and a neat, tight fitting hat of black chip straw. Her knotty toll worn hands ly ing in her lap were clasped tightly and from time to time the thin fingers worked aconvulsively. Her brown eyes looked at the Magistrate with dumb misery. They were eyes that once had shed many tears. Now they were eyes that had long since gone dry.
 Please, Your Honor" said the rrObation officer, "her' husband is Q Scod, hard working man. Its just when he takes to drink that he won't support her. He makes good wages other times and is a good husband. am in favor of giving him another chance"
 And so Magistrate Curran gives the husband one more chance to make good, and the woman with the ging- ham dress and the eyes that still had the lOveHght in them for her man went out of the court room resolved to give married life another chance.
 This is just one of the hundreds of eases which come up before Judge Curran each week. Fifty cases a day is the common rule, while Fri day between sixty and seventy cases were called. Men and women who have tried to make the game of mar riaEe a success and have pitifully failed to find their way here hoping that the Ma@istrate will be able to lind some way out of their diff culties for them and that the old love of courtship days will come back once more. From half past nine in the morning until sometimes as late as six at night the court room is crowded with these married couples.
 Sometimes it is drink that causes the trouble Sometimes it is general incomDatibIlity. And alas. it is only too often the mother-in-law of vaude- vile and the comic supplements who has put the kibosh on the erstwhiIe happy home.
 'She won't live with me anywhere but at my mother-in-law's," ex- plained Q slim boyish chap who seemed almost too young to have a wife at all, let alone the two babies which he said were his. "AI her family took after me and beat me. They hit me with a hammer and made my jaw bleed"
 ''No, no, mol" interrupted his wife who was seated near by. She could only understand a little English and had to have most of her conversation interpreted. She was a little dark girl with a hat of pink with blue os- trich feathers and a pink rose on it. Around her shoulders was a cape of bedraggled mirabou. The baby in her arms kept tugging at the milk bottle and cOoing up into it's mothers dark, scowling face. Here was pret- ty face, too, one made for tender smiles and laughter instead of the frowns which she cast from time to time at her husband It hard ly seemed possible that one could be so petit and yet so animated with hatred.
 Quite different was the attitude of the next man and woman who stood before Judge Curran and told their troubles. It was the old story of the mans failure to pay for the sup port of their child as he had prom ised and of the woman's refusal to let him see the child now that he was running around with the other wo- man. Yet with these two seemed to alS EE "a