“That the predictions of the opponents of a separate domestic
relations court, that its organization would serve to promote
more antagonism in the family, that it would tend to harass the
husband, father and provident relative unnecessarily, have not
been fulfilled. Statistics show that the number of cases brought
herein since September 1st last, a period of four months, has
been 574, which would be at the rate of 1,722 cases for the year
1910, for abandonment and non-support in the borough of Brooklyn.
The number of cases of abandonment and non-support in the borough
of Brooklyn for the year 1909 was 1,907, thus actually showing an
apparent decrease of 185 cases of non-support for the year 1910,
as compared with the year 1909.
“The provisions of Chapter 168, Laws of the year 1905, of the
State of New York, which provides that the abandonment and
non-support of a minor child or children is made a felony and
extraditable has been put in execution, and it can be said that
on a meritorious case the negligent father who actually abandons
and neglects to support his minor child or children will be
pursued to the extreme boundaries of these United States,
arrested and brought into the jurisdiction of this court to stand
trial for such desertion and non-support.
“No statistical information can be obtained as to the amount of
money received in the magistrates courts of the borough of
Brooklyn for the year 1909, but from my personal knowledge I
venture to say that less than $1,000 was received therein to be
applied to the benefit of neglected wives and children during the
year 1909, or any year previous thereto, within the last decade.
For four months, from September 1st to December 31st, 1910,
inclusive, there has been paid into the hands of the probation
officers of this court, the sum of $4,968.45 or at the rate of
about $15,000 a year.”
Something of the spirit in which the domestic relations court was
conceived, and of the end which it was designed to further, may be
glimpsed from the following paragraph from Judge Dooley:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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