The law ought to give such men redress. ‘Sauce for the goose’ is not yet ‘sauce for the gander.’ A battered wife may claim and get the assistance the law has wisely provided. Husbands of habitually drunken wives ought to have, and it is monstrous that they do not have, equal rights and privileges. The Habitual Inebriates Act of 1898 does not apply to these women; it only applies to women charged four times in one year. But the women charged four times in one year are--at least, eighty per cent. are--homeless ‘unfortunates,’ victims, not of drink, but of sensuality or of mental disease. These a kind Government has provided for, and offers ten and sixpence per week for a period not exceeding three years and not less than one to such philanthropic societies, public bodies and private individuals who will undertake to care for them. County Councils in their turn are also willing to supplement the Government grant by a contribution of six and sixpence per week for such ‘habitual inebriates’ as shall be charged or committed within their jurisdiction. Here, then, is an extraordinary position. Unspeakably gross women are cared for; idleness, sensuality, or dementia are treated as inebriety; the public are taxed or rated to the extent of seventeen shillings per week for everyone committed to an inebriate reformatory. These, after their one, two, or three years’ detention have passed, will come back to their old haunts, their old vice, and their old shame. They have already begun to do so. But the really inebriate go uncared for, and from thousands of homes comes the despairing cry for help. From good husbands and loving fathers, from neglected children in blighted homes, the sorrowful cry goes up unto Heaven; and the wreckage of such homes is all about us. But to all this the law has nothing to say unless the wretched woman gets charged four times in one year. Surely, if it is right--and it is right--that a down-trodden wife should be protected, it is equally right and just, nay, it is absolutely imperative, that a husband should have some means of obtaining redress--some chance of lightening his heavy burden. Hundreds of husbands bear this kind of life till they can bear it no longer, and they take themselves off, leaving their wives and families to be cared for by the parish, and the law is set in motion to find them, for many are brought back and punished. Many bear with this life till maddened nature can stand it no longer, and a violent assault ensues, followed by prosecution and imprisonment.