Our Wives. (For the Free Lance.)

Free Lance, Volume III, Issue 155, 20 June 1903, Page 17

Our Wives . (For the Free Lance.)

LIST us consider them. Their lives are made up of a few pleasures, much -work and worry, and, w here the house father is addicted to night s-out, indescribable anxiety. The w ork and household w ornes may not materially affect the domestic happiness if the wife be a wise woman, but the constant dread of the late-at-mght husband creates a canker that eats out the heart and deadens the best love. Drink, to excess, is the wife's most patent enemy. Times without number we have devised schemes to combat the evil, but with little effect. We have given our wives the franchise, grudgmglv, 'tis true, but they have got 't. Those happy in their homes have treated it with indifference, while the large number that hoped to effect reforms by it find it fcoo complicated a piece of machinery for them to handle. Kow- pathetic in its earnestness was the action of the poor woman at Newtown election, whose mind had been running for twelve months on the phiasei that was to save her home, and restore her husband "Strike out the top line." She did it, but, with so much zeal that she disfranchised herself. She drew her pencil through ' Instruction how to vote." The wife whose husband isi given to just one more after the clock has struck eleven can see nothing before her but comfortless years, or the cold, cruel preciseness of the Divorce Court to lehcve her. In the latter case, it is so hard sometimes to get relief, owing to the great difficulty of proving habitual drunkenness. People look at it in so many diffeient lights. Knew a man who was dismissed for habitual drunkenness. He took an action against his employers The>v called six witnesses to prove that he was rarely sober. He called six iust as reputable people, and who had the same opportunities of seeing him as

the* piewous witnesses, and they, in good taith, swore they had no\er seen him the woise foi dunk. A learned judge declared that a man was not diunk so long as he could ask for another drink And yet another more or less eminent authonty says that, a man might only safely bo said to be intoxicated if he attempted to light his pipe at a pump. If man's stage of intoxication ls such a hard thing for men of the w orld to deteimine, how is poor, do\\ n-tiodden woman to arrive at a just conclusion on her husband's past p She is frequently an illogical being, and has been known to say to her husband that he was drunk, when, poor man. he was only tired by over-work. On the other hand, she has sympathised with an alleged tired husband when he was all but 'Paralytic " It's the last drink that does the trick but even then there are some men to whom a certain amount of cunning coinee to' rescue them from a scene at home. This class will steady themselves ont he doorstep for ten minutes before turning the latch-key and entering the house, and in that time will have so braced themselves up that tliev arei good for a ten-minutes' inspection and examination. The wife comes out to the hall to meet him. "You're late to-night, George?" "Yes, mv dear, very busy Short-handed at the office." And he goes to bed dead "tired," and 's aw fully surprised next morning to find that, although he cannot lemember exactly how he got home he couldn't have been so very bad His clothes are in their accustomed place, and hi« boots are carefully resting on the dooimat Many many lies and nights are laid at the door of "the office " It i« however, beginning to be understood that the proper spelling of this last word i "club " Sometimes shortened to "pub. ' The obiect of this article is to place in the hand* of wives an uneniner means by which they can deteimine the pro-

ciso stage of intoxication at which their husband has arrived when he reaches home unduly late from the long-suffering and much maligned "office." As alleadv said, habitual drunkenness is one of the hardest things possible for a w ife to prove to the satisfaction of a jury. I claim for mv scheme infallibility, and, after its efficacy has been proved by a few wires, I leave it with them to have a clause inserted in the Divorce Act, "That a wife may have just grounds to obtain a decree if her husband fails to pass the word test a given number of times in tivelve months." It is simplicity itself. When the husband comes home smelling of tobacco and a suspicion of whisky, with the stale "office" excuse and the poor, confiding wife is doubtful whether his appearance and manner are due to diink or worry let her decidei the point bv asking him to say — "Nonintea'communicability." If really intoxicated, he* will attempt it or die. If his effort only produces — ' Non insher comunsh slublty," his w ife can with a clear conscience, pa to her diary and write — "April 1 Midnight. "George just come horne — drunk , failed to nass word test." — J. A. K.