An extraordinary case of cruelty to a wife was brought
beforo the Lord Mayor on Tuesday. It appeared from the evidence of the wife, an English girl who had married a German, that she had had no home for years, that they got lodging for the night where they could, that recently she had repeatedly walked about with him all day and all night, that on Friday he refused to pay for her bed, and told her to go on the streets or thieve. He had sold. all her clothes except some rags, even .her chemise, knocked her down habitually, and on this particular Friday did so a dozen times—facts con- firmed by evidence. She then- in despair tried to drown her- self, the husband jeering her' allthe while and telling her tl:e water was deep enough. Both were fortunately arrested in time. The story, told with plaintive simplicity, seems to have been literally true. Sir Robert Carden sentenced the ruffian to two months' imprisonment, and the wife tried to beg him off that. And then good men wonder why the lower classes are so brutal. How are they to be otherwise, when the chief magistrate of the City punishes tortures like these with a sixthof thesentenco which would be inflicted for stealing a pieeeof silk ?
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