Not another word could be got from her. The landlady was called, and said: ‘These people have lived with me for a long time. A better man never lived; a worse woman could not be found. She has sold or pawned all his goods time after time. She has been in prison again and again. Many a time the prisoner has spent the night looking for his wife, and once brought her home dead drunk on a wheelbarrow; he had found her in a dustbin. On the present occasion she had only been a week out of prison, where she had been for two months. During that time the prisoner, who is a basket-maker, had got a new home together, had made it very nice, and went to meet her at the prison. When she got home, and saw how nice it was, she promised never to drink again; but during the week she pawned many of the things, and when the prisoner came home on Saturday she was lying drunk in her rooms. He had a walking-stick in his hand, and as he passed my door I said, “Your wife has been at it again.” Presently I heard screams and cries of “Murder!” The prisoner came down and said, “Good-bye; you will never see me again.” Thinking he was going to commit suicide, I followed him, and told a policeman, who took him into custody. When we got back to the room, we found the woman lying in a pool of blood on the floor, and the stick lying beside her.’ On being asked for his defence, every eye in the court was turned on the old man. ‘I can only plead great provocation, and call witnesses as to my character,’ he said, in quavering tones. ‘Thirty-five years we have been man and wife; twenty-five years she has been an inveterate drunkard, yet, as God is my Judge, I have never struck her before. She has ruined my home many times; she has been in prison a score of times. I had to send my two boys away from home to be away from her influence. I used to go round to where they lived and mend their clothes myself after I had done work. My friends wanted me to leave her, my sons wanted me to go and live with them; but I always said, “She is your mother, and she will alter yet.” When I came home on that Saturday and saw my home again broken up, and her lying drunk on the bed, with the pawn-tickets round her, I was mad. If ever a man was mad, I was mad. All the wrongs I had suffered for twenty-five years came before me, and I was mad. I struck her I don’t know how many times with that stick. That is all I can say, sir, and that is the truth, God help us!’