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

Court of Domestic Relations presents,
 however. Magistrate Curran tells with
 smile of 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 i 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. a 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 convulsively. 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. l Please, Your Honor" said the ! probation officer, "her husband is Q | l 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 1 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 l the loveIght in them for her man | went out of the court room resolved l to give married life another chance. This is just one of the hundreds | of cases which come up before Judge i Curran each week. Fifty cases a 1 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 1 riage a success and have pitifuIly l IstAItu u AliAu iIlE4I Ntty IltI6 IODlIS 1 that the Magistrate will be able to | find some way out of their diff 1 culties for them and that the old love
 of courtship days will come back { once more From half past nine in 1 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 i the trouble. Sometimes 1t Is general 1 incomDatibllity. And. alas. it is only | too often the mother-in-law of vaude- | vile and the comic supplements who i has put the llibosh on the erstwhile happy home.
 ''She won't live with me anywhere
 but at my mother-in-Iaw's," ex- ' plained a slim, boyish chap who ! seemed almost too young to have a | wife at all, let alone the two babies
 which he said were his. "An her i 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 converse ton | interpreted. She was little dark | girl with a hat of pink with blue os- | trich feathers and a pink rose on ii. i Around her shoulders was a cape | of bedraggled mirabou. The baby in | her arms kept tugging at the milk | bottle and cooing up into its mothers 1 dark, scowling face. Here was a pret- | ty face, too, one made for tender ! smiles and laughter instead of the | malignant frowns which she cast from | time to time at her husband. It hard | ly seemed possible that one could be 1 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 1 ised and of the woman's refusal to let 1 him see the child now that he was | running around with the other wo- | man. Yet with these two seemed to