Captain Owen Peel, who had pleaded guilty to the charge
of fraud in connexion with betting telegrams to book- makers, was sentenced on Tuesday at the Central Criminal Court to twelve menthe' imprisonment. Mrs. Peel was acquitted, by direction of Mr. Justice Darling, on the technical plea— older than the Conquest—that a woman who commits a crime in the presence of her husband is presumed to act under his coercion. The judge felt himself bound to apply this " melan- choly " doctrine, though he made it clear, in pronouncing sentence, that he did not believe for a moment that Captain Peel had coerced his wife. There was nothing unusual in the case itself—for such mean frauds arc all too common—apart from the social position of the defendants. But it is surely time that the legal irresponsibility of the married woman was modified. Now that women sit in the House of Commons, on the bench and on juries; the presumption of the black-letter lawyers that "le fume no osa contredire son Baron" looksfoolish..
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