Truth of last week contained an admirable suggestion for legis-
lation in relation to the growing evil of wife-beating. It was that the wife of a man convicted of repeated brutal assaults upon her, or of any one aggravated assault leading to serious injury, should have a claim to a judicial separation, and, if she obtained such a separation, should have both the control of the children, and also a right to a certain contribution towards the expenses of those children, to be fixed by the magis- trate, as in the case of illegitimate children. This would protect the wife, if able to prove her case, against the revenge of a vin- dictive brute, without mulcting her in parental sufferings for her children ; and it is clear that no case for judicial separation eau' be so complete as a case originating in a husband's habit of brutality towards her, to any extent which would make her minted life a continual misery and a terror. Such legislation as this la' really feasible, and should, we think, be seriously set about.
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