The most serious assaults are not so much the outcome of drunken anger as of drunken cruelty; and, pent up in one direction, it finds vent in another. This passion seems to possess some men regularly, and it is indulged at the expense of those who offer least resistance to it, viz. the female members of their household. With them a habit is formed of assaulting their women-folk, and the habit grows in force and intensity. In most cases of brutal wife-murder that have come under my observation, the fatal assault has simply been the last of a series committed regularly when the culprit was under the influence of drink, and the woman's death was the final incident in a long-drawn-out martyrdom. In other cases men who are ordinarily peaceable find themselves in prison charged with assaults of which they have no distinct recollection, the result of sudden passion that has swept their minds when they were intoxicated. Others become so pugnacious when they take drink that they are not content till they are in a row and do not seem to mind whether they get hurt or not. In their case--which seems to be the most common--it is not the lust of cruelty but the delight in battle that stirs them, and though they may get fully as much as they give, it does not deter them from repeating their conduct. Another class of assaults is that committed on persons who are under the influence of drink, and who by their misconduct have provoked their assailant. They are relatively few, and the assault is rarely so brutal in character or so serious in result; though occasionally it may end tragically. X 12 was a young man who married a girl of respectable character. They were both sober and industrious. She had been engaged in a factory before her marriage and had very little practical experience of housekeeping. She was not accustomed to household routine, and as her husband did not get home for his meals she had a lot of time on her hands. Her house was in a different part of the city from that of her parents, and she had to make friends for herself. Unfortunately she got into the company of some who gossiped together and moistened the talk with drink. At first she abstained, but by and by she began to do like the rest; and unlike them she could not control herself. She showed a tendency to excess which they tried to discourage for their own sakes as well as hers. Her husband discovered her misconduct, and in order to break her of it removed to another district. For a time she did well, and her relatives helped her. But again she drifted in her search for company into that of those who took the "social glass." It is wonderful how a woman when she has once taken to drink finds a difficulty in making friendships with other women who have not done so, unless she becomes a militant teetotaler. In the present instance the young wife had relapse after relapse over a series of years, and her husband seems to have done all in his power to save her.