DIRTY DOG DESERTER.

NZ Truth, Issue 74, 17 November 1906, Page 6

DIRTY DOG DESERTER.

Reckless of Wife and Bairns' Fate.

There are some lovely, allspice, casual, irresponsible beings drifting round this country, and one meets them as mere matters of detail which may be cast aside like an empty plate. These ■ jokers— or perhaps insects would be the better term—deserve a severe "doing," but m most circumstances the law isn't able to be as severe as it might be ; were it so the bench would be going beyond its jurisdiction. There was a pretty sturdy specimen of alleged nlanhood up before the Christchurch Police Court t'other morning who could do with a /term m chokey. He is one of a vile class who clear out from a place and allow their wives and children to go to the devil, so far as they care. There isn't much sympathy knocking round for "things", of this sort, especially if it isn't necessary for them to leave a town owing to jack of employment. The .

NAME OF THE ANIMAL m the present instance is James Carter, whose two children, James and Mary Carter, are m the Wellington Receiving Home. Carter was brought up on summons, and called upon to show why he hadnjt paid anything for their maintenance. He told the Court that he didn't know; they were m such a place. The last time he saw them they were m a comfortable home.

"Have you a wife ?" asked Bishop, S.M.

"I .believe so," was the astounding response. "You believe so— what do you mean by that ?'! "Well, I have not seen her for some time." It appeared from what Sergt. Norwood said that this scoundrel had basely deserted his wife, and the Wellington magistrate made an order committing the two children io the Home. The defendant hadn't contributed a penny towards their support. Mjc Bishop asked the man's occupation, and it turned out that he was employed on the Maheno, which was then m port, and made trips to and from Sydney. An order was made that claret-nosed Carter,

WHO OUGHT TO BE CLUBBED, should pay . 7s per week for each child, making fourteen bob m all which he'll lose from his screw. The magistrate wanted to know how the order, could be enforced, but as the sergeant couldn't, offer an opinion, a sailor being a difficult man to deal with,, it was decided to merely serve him with the order, and the future will alone. decide whether the stinking, stingy souser will keep up his payments or not. Curt and curious Carter little dreamt that He WOUlu* be Wue-papered m this colony when he shipped on the Maheno at Newcastle. He deserted his wife at Greymouth about eight months ago, and steered for Sydney. The woman appears to have taken this damnably cruel act on his part very much to heart, and on making her way to Wellington she went to the devil, and the authorities took her little children from her, and placed them m proper control. And now the cowardly dog . says a t Christchurch thait that was the first he had heard of it, and that the youngsters were m a respectable and comfortable home when he left them. But what did he do, in the way of keeping them m that home, and to prevent his wife taking to the streets to be .

DEBASED AND DEBAUCHED, during the whole :of that eight months? Absolutely nothing. People of Carter's class want cow-nidinp: ; if they acted the square thing by their families the women wouldn't take to a life of immorality, and we wouldn, t hear of so many prostitutes "who were once well connected" being sent to the "jug" and damned for life. Nor would the State be compelled to receive s 0 many children, who are brought up m a dull, dreary, dismal fashion, without the benefits and loye and comforts of a home, and into whose life not a single ray of sunshine • ever enters— and all because they (or. most of them) were deserted by their fathers. in their infancy.