A SINGULAR FAMILY QUARREL.

Southland Times, Volume 1, Issue 501, 25 June 1866, Page 3

A SINGULAR FAMILY QUARREL.

Very lively reading is not to be expected in the Law Journal, but every now and then that interesting publication does contain something remarkable. In the number for the present month, under the head of ' : Probate, Matrimonial, end Admiralty Cases," aud at pages 141 and 143. in the report of the case of Cousen v. Cousen, we find the following surprising illustration of what is not cruelty in a husband. It may be interesting to our married readers. Mrs Cousen's evidence is set out at length, and contains inter alia', — "The next night he came back about twelve. I was in bed. . . He brought a dog with him. This was in the latter end of November. It was a crose, bad-tempered dog ; not a very large one. He insisted on having the dog in bed between us. I objected to it very much, and begged that the dog be , left downstairs. He insisted on keeping the dog in bed all night, We had the dog there (in bed) the first night, and p,lso one or two nights following. I could not sleep while the dog was there ; I was leo frightened. It was lying on the pil- ' low between Us, jaeav my shoulder." Xn the following June the* dog reappeared I | — Cl Tho dog slept in. the bevl between us 5 I objected very much> and told him §9i fovf knew I should get no sleep* The I dog remaiued all. nih&t, j was iiwake the ! ftlwle night; ?M ww l?eM«$l? stiff and

pained next day from lying in one position on account of it. The next day, in the afternoon, he tried to set the dog at me. It was savage ; it rushed at me and harked. . . . He persevered in endeavoring to make the dog bite me." The Judge Ordinary, in giving judgment remarked, " The whole of the wife's complaint falls within the category of coldness, want of affection, isolation, and the like, and the question is, whether conduct of this nature, in the total absence of personal violence or words of menace, can be pronounced legal cruelty." He held that it could not. Is it " coldness," " want of affection, or isolation," to set a savage dog at a woman and make her sleep with it ? " Perhaps you did right to dissemble your love, but why did you kisk me down stairs," said the poet. Sir James Wilde would probably hold that kicking down stairs might be effected with a " total absence of personal violence," and that if so it was only a form of want of affection or of coldness at the most, and and thus added nothing to that dissimulation of love which was admitted to be right, and could not be regarded as legal cruelty. — JP&ll Hall Gazette.