AUCKLAND HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2812, 7 May 1895, Page 3

AUCKLAND HUSBANDS AND WIVES.

i M Either the men of Auckland are the most profligate set of men in the whole of the colony or the women are the most cantankerous in the whole of the colony. In Christchurch, Wellington, and Dunedin there are not as many cases for maintenance as in Auckland." Thus Mr Northcroft, S.M. He was hearing a case in which a young woman named Stuart— Btill a slip of a girl, though the mother of two children —sued her husband, under the Destitute Persons Act, for maintenance. The woman's statement, as elicited from her by Mr Brassey, her counsel, was that her husband had given her little or no money, that there was a corresponding shortness of provisions, that when she had asked him why he did not go to work he had told her to go and get her liviug on the streets, and that eventually she had had to leave him and go back to her mother. The answer to this given by Stuart—a strong, sturdy young fellow was that he had had difficulty in getting work, that he had given his wife what he had earned, and that he had fared just the same as she had. The big difficulty was that they were unsuited in temperament. | She wanted him to flatter her. ( She i doesn't ask for flattery' said Mr Northcroft, * she asks for food.' Stuart replied that he could not stand a woman's tongue; he would rather go out and fight the biggest pugilist going, even if he got knocked out the first hit. He had been unable to Btand his own people's tongues, so it was not likely he was going to stand his wife's. He was a man and not a woman. ' I don't know so much about that,' said Mr Northcroft; 'no man who ia a man would tell his wife to do what you did.' ' I reckon I waß not a man in that,' admitted Stuart, 'and I deserve shooting for it. But I was driven mad at the time.' He was earning about £llos a week, he told Mr Brassey, and was willing to pay his wife whatever the Court saw fit to fix, providing it was a reasonable amount. His wife was a really good woman, but he could not stand her constantly going for him with her tongue. Mr Northcroft said he did not think he could make an order, as in his opinion the Act was not intended to meet such a case. Both man and wife apparently had had the same food. The first step the woman should have taken was to get a protection order. The information was, therefore, dismissed.— Auckland Herald.