THE RECENT LATCH-KEY DECISION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2417, 7 January 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE RECENT LATCH-KEY DECISION.

The husbands of America, without res- | peet to age or previous condition to servitude owe a debt of gratitude to Mrs Rufus J. Bell, of Wilkcsbarre, Pennsylvania. That lady, without intending it, has conferred on all benedicts a boon, tho importance of which it is hardly possible to over-estimate. It is a well-known fact that every married man considers it necessary to wear somewhere about his person a latchkey. This ia a sort of modern talisman that no self-respecting husband will eonsent to do without. It enables him, if ho is sober enough, to open the front door at any hour of the night. Men have always considered it humiliating to stand at their own door and ring until someone within wakes up and comes and opens it. Such a condition of things is often decidedly prejudicial to the health, as every man well-knows who has stood in the pelting rain until his castle drawbridge was let down. It is true that wives have never looked upon the latchkey with that affection that might be expected of them when they must know that it is often a friend in need to their huibands. Wives, regrettable as the fact may be, are sometimes not partial to the dearest friends of their husbands. A woman will tell her husband that she i 3 quite willing to wait up for him, but that is the very thing he wants to prevent. Ladies have very little consideration. They do not realise that a man returning home from a fatiguing session at the lodge is in a state of such nervous prostration that he is not equal to facing a series of questions that appear to him at that hour confusing and involved. He feels that he may give answers which in the calmer hours of the morning he may regret. Mr Howell's clergyman said that it was sometimes easier to make one's peace with one's Maker than with one's wife; and most husbands coming home at questionable hours would about as soon face tho one as the other. To avoid any controversy or crossexamination at un hour when, a man knows ho is not up to it is tho object of all conscientious husbands, and in attaining this laudablo desire ho feels that a latch-key is hie most trustworthy assistant. The woman who would ruthlessly tear from her loving husband this useful friend must havo littlo sympathy for the philantrophic objects for which our lodges so often convene. This is what the lady of Wilkesbarre tried to do._ Sho applied for an injunction to restrain, her husband from coming into her house at all hours of the night. Happily the case came before a judge who is n husband himself. Judge Rice denied tho motion. He said ifc would be equivalent to gaanting a divorce. Tho only way tho lady could get rid of the latch-key was to get rid of her heeband ky the usual moans of the divorce court. This is sound law. There can be no doubt about that. A great many downtrodden husbands will think it is sound justice as well; and law and justice aro not always synonymous terms. Let it bo recorded, therefore, that the latch-koy is recognised by the law of tho land as inseparable from the husband. It is, as it were, part of him in tho eye of the law, and let us hope that tho eye of tho law did not wink when it made tho decision. Tho husband and the latch-key are Siamese Twins. " Lovo mo lovo my latch-key," will bo tho motto of husbands in future ; and, what is moro, they will havo the law on thoir Bide.—Detroit Froo Press,