RUNAWAY HUSBANDS IN ENGLAND.

Waikato Times, Volume VIII, Issue 454, 15 April 1875, Page 3

RUNAWAY HUSBANDS IN ENGLAND.

The year 1842 was a bad year 'joy husbands. As late as 1841, a husband might "run away and rid himself of his wife and children with some moderate hope of succass, but no sooner did, 42 set in than his chances considerably lessened. He can desert, of course, for it is easy. He can still feel once more the freedom of bachelorhood blowing about him, or, if he prefer it, revel in some newer and illegal tie. This is easy, too — for a time. A husband can even go so far as to hug himself with thinking he has got clean off from that " old woman " and those " little 'uns" who were so imperious in their demand for food and some sort of a roof above their heads. As much is that is a work of complacency and facility that will not take much genius, and during which the features may wear a smile. But there it is done. After the short period there comes the pulling up ; the man finds the chain he carries as many links to it, that the liberty he has longed for is but shortlived. Down comes the hand oi the law, helped by the din of the voice belonging to it ; and, in a trice, out must come the reckoning. It is a wholesome change. The little instrument that effects it is the "Poor Law Unions' Gazette," a small "weekly/ the precise size of a sheet of Bath post, printed only for technical purposes, and posted to every Union in the kingdom, on the Friday evening of every week. By the establishment of this little periodical, the hue and cry for husbaads is made loud and piercing; every corner which a man. may hide and skulk is lighted with official gas ; and it is vain, for any critical guardian of the poor to complain of the poverty of its matter, to point out how much more varied and graphic its pages might fee, to try and get a vote that it shall no longer be "taken in." It is imperative that it be received — that is to say, it is imperative that it be paid for ; it is legally chargeable to the poor rates, whether it be- read or not ; and as its small price (twopence a-week) must go down in the accounts, that parochial officer would be too unwise should order it to be cast out into the streets. Free,, thus, from any caprice of supervising that shall lessen (or- increase) its sale, this smallest of contemporaries goes, on, its way faithfully, and in its own way does its work.