Crime -- Great Britain; Criminal anthropology; Punishment -- Great Britain
She had two children, and when sober she attended to them adequately; but
her fits of drinking began to occur more frequently, and in them she
became more reckless. After one, in which she had sold out the household
furniture and disappeared, she returned penitent and he set up house again
with her. She kept sober for some weeks, they were getting things
together, and he was trusting her with some money. One Monday evening he
went home from his work to find the house partially stripped, the children
neglected, dirty, and in tears, and his wife in a dazed condition waiting
to receive him with maudlin apologies. In his anger he pushed her from
him. Her body struck the corner of the table, and shortly after she fell
and died. She had sustained rupture of an internal organ and she bled to
death in a few minutes. The result was altogether disproportionate to the
amount of violence used and was in a sense accidental, but her death could
as truly be attributed to drink as many of those which result from the
assaults of drunken persons.
Drink plays an important part in the commission of sexual offences, but it
is not more generally a factor in such cases than in those of simple
assaults. In the great majority of these charges against men under middle
age it is found that the assailant was at the time under its influence,
however; and in the most atrocious and unspeakable cases it is rarely
absent unless when there is insanity present.
Of late years there has been an increasing desire on the part of the
legislature to secure proper care for children, and to punish those who by
negligence or cruelty allow their offspring to suffer. Cases have been
reported that reveal a shocking state of affairs, and parents have been
prosecuted and sent to prison for their callousness and cruelty. Of all
prisoners these are usually the most hopeless and useless; the most
entirely selfish in their outlook; the most inclined to grumble and shirk
work; the persons with the keenest sense of their rights and the lowest
sense of their responsibilities--this from a merely superficial
observation of them. The care of the children falls naturally to the
women; the provision for them to the men. The men have excuses to offer
for the condition of the children, and these excuses are sometimes valid;
for a man cannot be at the same time working outside to support his family
and looking after them in the house. If the woman is given the money to
defray the necessary expenses, and neglects their care, it is difficult
for her to stand excused. In practically all the cases drink enters into
the question, and its presence explains but does not excuse the neglect.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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