If it be admitted that all divorce should be absolute, the question arises: What should be the ground of divorce? First, adultery, because breach of faith on either side should void the contract which implies loyalty to each other; the legal costs of both should fall on the breaker of the contract, but no damages should be recoverable against a third party. Next, cruelty, because where the weaker party suffers from the abuse of power of the stronger, there the law should, when appealed to, step in to annul the contract, which is thus a source of injury to one of the contracting parties; if a man be brought up before the magistrate charged with wife-beating or violence of any kind towards his wife, and be convicted and sentenced, the Divorce Court should, on the demand of the wife, the record being submitted to it, pronounce a sentence of divorce; in the rare case of violence committed by a wife on her husband, the same result should accrue; the custody of the children should be awarded to the innocent party, since neither a man nor a woman convicted of doing bodily harm to another is fit to be trusted with the guardianship of a child. * The next distinct ground of divorce should be habitual drunkenness; drunkenness causes misery to the sober partner, and is ruinous in its effect, both on the _physique_ and on the character of the children proceeding from the marriage. Here, of course, the custody of the children should be committed entirely to the innocent parent. * Since these lines were published in the National Reformer, a clause has been inserted in a bill now before Parliament, empowering magistrates to grant an order of separation to a wife? if it is proved that she has been cruelly ill-used by her husband, and further compelling the husband, in such a case, to contribute a weekly sum towards her maintenance. This will be a great improvement on the present state of things, but absolute divorce would be better than mere separation. At present, the usual unfairness presides over the arrangements as to access to the children by the parents: "In the case of a mother who is proved guilty of adultery, she is usually debarred from such access, though it has not been the practice to treat the offending father with the same rigour" (Broom's "Comm.," vol. iii., p. 404). In all cases of divorce the interests of the children should be carefully guarded; both parents should be compelled to contribute to their support, whether the guardianship be confided to the father or to the mother.