THE MAGISTRATE’S ORDER.

Several methods are open to married people who find living together unendurable of becoming separated without being divorced. If their trouble is mutual misery and unhappiness, they may adopt the primitive plan of deserting each other and ceasing all further communication; or they may enter into a deed of separation, each undertaking not to molest or in any way interfere with the other. Both these methods are voluntary, and call for neither judicial nor magisterial interference. But mere misery or unhappiness will not secure a separation by order of the court. The law does not give protection against unhappiness or the causes of unhappiness. Before the aid of the law can be obtained one of the parties to the marriage must prove thus the conduct of the other party has given rise to a reasonable apprehension of injury, physical or mental, if cohabitation be continued. When that is proved a magistrate’s order may be obtained in a police-court, which directs that the person to whom it is granted shall not be bound to cohabit with the other party; or a judicial separation may be obtained in the High Court on this and other grounds. Because of its relative cheapness the magistrate’s order is much the more frequently applied for. Mr. Waddy, a Thames Police-court magistrate, stated recently that £7,000 is being paid out weekly in that one court to wives who have been granted separation orders.