WIFE DESERTION.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXII, Issue 877, 11 August 1910, Page 4

WIFE DESERTION.

“ This is a measure that might fitly be called a Bill to relieve the necessities and sufferings of women and children, because it is for their protection mainly that it has been framed,” said Dr. Findlay in moving the second reading of the Destitute Persons Bill in the Legislative Council on Friday afternoon last. The Bill which removes inconsistencies of the present law also incorporates the suggestions ot senior magistrates on the Bill of last year. In emphasising the need for legislation to meet the growing evil of wife desertion, Dr P'indlay stated that the Dominion’s industrial schools contained 2380 children, of whom probably 50 per cent, had been deserted by one parent or the other, but chiefly by the father, A considerable number were out on probation at work and others had been allowed to go to friends under supervision, the actual number maintained by the State being 1566. Ot these the charitable aid boards paid for 728, the amount paid last year being approximately £IO,OOO. The total number towards whose maintenance something was paid was only 870, leaving 696 for whom no payment whatever was made to the State. The maintenance of these children had cost the State last year ,£44,457, including the contributions from the charitable aid boards, while parents and others had contributed only £5786, or approximately onesixth of the cost.

The present law, said Dr Findlay was very defective. The authorities knew of cases where parents had escaped to Australia and were earning good wages, but as the law stood it paid better to maintain the children in industrial schools than to pursue the parents and make them undertake their responsibilities. A great deal more, however, could be done if the present Bill was passed into law.

Special proposals had been made for dealing with men who escaped to Australia leaving maintenance unpaid, Dr Findlay continued. The clause laid it down that “ every person against whom a maintenance order has beea made and who while any moneys payable under the order are in arrears leaves or attempts to leave New Zealand shall be guilty of an indictable offence punishable by imprisonment with hard labour for any term not exceeding two years.” A similar penalty was prescribed for men leaving the country with intent to make default in their payments. He had been told that wife de ; sertion was increasing, said Dr Findlay, but a remedy would be provided if the Bill were passed, and he would, wherever possible, have every offender who fled to Australia brought back at the Stale’s expense. One way of stopping wife desertion was to let the offenders know that the arm of the law was long enough to bring them back from Australia, put them in gaol, and make them work in this connection. The provisions for securing reciprocity with each of the Australian States would be of the greatest value.

While fishing in fresh water at Botany (New South Wales) a few clays age, Mr H. Tombs caught a plump eel about fifteen inches long, which was of a rich golden colour, and nearly as brilliant as a golden carp. The specimen was handed to the Fisheries Department, where Mr D. G. Stead, the departmental naturalist, determined its species. In his report to the Fisheries Board, Mr Stead said that it was a case of albinism in the eel family, and the first instance of the natural phenomenon which he had ever had submitted to him. The eel was quite healthy and normal in every other respect except that of colour.