A FATHER'S DUTY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7956, 5 February 1906, Page 7

A FATHER'S DUTY.

There are quite a number of nice points involved in the legal relations between parents and children. Fortunately, the average parca*; has no occasion to go to law with either sou or daughter, and it is only whoa a case is stated for the judges that peaceful folk can learn the extent of their duties, and the limitations of their privileged A Scarborough medical man discovered last month that he could not have bis son restrained from euteriug his bouse. The' plaintiff in (be action, Dr. Waterhouso, complained that bis son, a man of 35, refused to do any •work, aud insisted on living in bis father's house. Tbexe were unpleasantnesses. Young Waterh.iuse was an architect by profession, but Tefused to practise, and made no attempt to earn bis living. Then the father turned the son out of doors. The son refused to go, and though the father stormed the son came T)aok always to bed and meals. Even the offer of aa allowance would not keep the idle young man away, and in desperation Dr. Waterhouse applied to the Courts for an injunction restraining the "on from entering the house. The judge flatly declined to grant the injunction, and read the plaintiff a lesson on parental duty. The duty of a father towards his son, be said, did not come to an eud when, by reason of "having attained bis majority, or a riper age, the son might be properly called upon to provide for himself, and the duty arising from the relation between parent and child as one of which the parent could in no circumstances divest himself. It was not confined to providing maintenance in infanoy or another time. There might be cases in which the son, by his misconduct, rendered it impossible for a father to discharge his parental duties, but the doty remained. The son, also, bad Ms duties, but tho Court, except in very grave circumstances, would never make an order which might result in severing tbe connection which ought to exist between parent and child. Apparently,' therefore, when the Btern father turns the erring son from the door, the law is against him. and a good many impressive chapters m modern flotlon stand in need of revision. ■