In the next instance the domestic relations court is a woman’s court. In almost every case that has appeared here the complainant has been a woman. It is not more than once in several months that a man appears as a complainant in this court. This is, of course, largely owing to the fact that man is not usually dependent upon his wife for support, and even if deserted by his wife a man is not likely to be exposed to hardship and suffering as is the case with a woman. Furthermore, this court has no power to grant divorces. It merely adjusts differences, punishes abandoning husbands, and advises separation when separation seems the only wise course, and determines the amount of money that the man must contribute towards the support of his wife, children or other relatives. The law under which the domestic relations court was established provides that to this court “shall be taken or transferred for arraignment, examination or trial, or to which shall be summoned all persons described as disorderly, all persons compelled by law to support poor relatives, and all persons charged with abandonment or non-support of wives of poor relatives under any provision of law, conferring upon magistrates summary jurisdiction or the authority to hold for trial in another court.” The law further provides that “the commissioner of public charities shall establish and maintain an office of the superintendent of outdoor poor in or convenient to the building in which is situated the domestic relations court.” This latter provision is to insure the supervision over delinquent husbands and also to provide against any miscarriage of support money. In other words, it is a sort of clearing house and controlling office after the case has passed through the domestic relations court.
The functions of the domestic relations court in New York, therefore, are clearly defined and extremely limited. In Chicago the domestic relations court has a much more ample scope, for it has jurisdiction in any of the following violations of state laws: Abduction of children under twelve years of age, abandonment of wife or child, bastardy, improper public exhibition or employment of children under fourteen years of age, contributing to dependency or delinquency of children, violation of all laws relating to child labor, violation of all laws relating to compulsory education and truancy, climbing upon cars by minors, permitting minors to gamble in saloons, permitting minors to enter dance halls where intoxicating liquor is sold, sale or gift of deadly weapons to minors, having or procuring intoxicating liquors for minors, sale of tobacco to minors. And also the Chicago court has jurisdiction over violations of the following city ordinances: sale of cigarettes to minors, sale of cigarettes within 600 feet from schoolhouse, gathering of cigar refuse by minors, sale of tobacco to minors under sixteen years of age, sale of intoxicating liquors to minors, purchasing of intoxicating liquors by minors, obtaining intoxicating liquors by minors by false pretences, sale of materials saturated with liquor to minors under sixteen years of age, giving samples of intoxicating liquors in bottles or otherwise to minors, gambling by minors in saloons, jumping up on moving cars by minors under eighteen years of age, employment of minors under sixteen years of age in pawnshops, receiving pledges from minors by pawn brokers, sale of deadly weapons to minors. Thus it is apparent that the Chicago domestic relations court is almost a combined children’s court. If the jurisdiction of the New York court were anything like as large, the calendar would be constantly glutted, and cases would have to wait as long as cases on the Supreme Court calendar must needs wait now. As it is, the domestic relations court handles all of its cases promptly, although it is perhaps the busiest court of the city, owing to the fact that the docket is cleaned up every day.
The two judges who sit in the Manhattan court are Magistrates Harris and Cornell. Each magistrate sits fifteen days alternately, then five days in one of the regular criminal magistrate’s courts, and then ten days holiday. Under Judge Harris and Judge Cornell the domestic relations court experiment has been tried out and proved successful. Under these two magistrates there has been established a progressive procedure in regard to husbands who refuse to live with and support their wives and families. When a woman appears in this court the judge listens to her story and if he feels that there is ground for action or need of legal interference, he will issue a summons which is really a legal form of request to the husband to appear in court on a certain day. The wife is then told to come back on the same day. If the husband appears in response to this summons, all well and good.
On the other hand, if he fails to take cognizance of the summons, a warrant is issued for his arrest, and he is brought to court willy nilly. When the moment for trial comes, the woman is put on the witness stand and after being duly sworn, proceeds to tell her story, without let or hindrance. If the corporation counsel happens to be present he represents the woman, and the defendant is entitled to counsel, although most of them are willing to tell their side of the story and abide by the decision of the judge. In the absence of the corporation counsel the presiding magistrate questions the woman, not in a hostile way at all, but with the idea of drawing from her all the facts which shall enable him to attain a wise decision. When she has finished the defendant takes the stand in the usual way and the judge questions him with a similar desire to elucidate the trouble. If the case is flagrant it is within the power of the court to sentence the man to the workhouse for a period of not more than six months. Many women urge that their neglectful husbands be sent away, but it is in this connection that the law is perhaps not all that it should be. If sending a man to prison provided his wife and children with bread and butter and rent it might frequently be a good thing for society in general and the family in particular to have the man locked up. Unfortunately, a man sent to Blackwell’s Island for six months is obliged to do work for the state, but this precludes all possibility of his contributing to the support of his family during the period of his incarceration. Furthermore, the law will not allow the prosecution a second time of a man who has just served a term of imprisonment for non-support or abandonment within one year of the first prosecution, so that if a woman asks the court to lock up her husband and the court complies, that woman voluntarily surrenders all legal right to take further action against him or collect money from him for a whole year. There is an agitation just now to have the state pay a prisoner for the work he does during his term of imprisonment and have the money forwarded to his family. This surely is a wise and reasonable provision.
If the court stipulates that a man making nine or ten dollars a week must contribute three dollars and a half or four dollars a week to the support of his family, that man is either placed on probation to one of the two regular probation officers attached to the domestic relations court, or he is placed under the supervision of the department of charities, alimony division. Money to be paid through the department of charities is regulated in this way. The defendant is instructed to bring or send the stated amount to the office of this department, at the foot of East Twenty-sixth street, a certain day in the week, and then the wife or whoever is to receive the money must call in person the following day and, upon accepting the amount, is required to give a receipt which is duly sent to the remitter. These receipts often figure in court at a later date as evidence of the amount of money which has actually been paid by the payee. It frequently happens that a man will contribute faithfully for several weeks and then payments will cease. In some instances this secession of payment is for a legitimate reason—the man may be sick, or may have lost his position, whereupon he is given an opportunity to explain in the court the reason for his delinquency. When the wife appears in court and tells the magistrate that her husband has become delinquent, the clerk of the court sends out a printed form which reads as follows:
Dear Sir—I have been informed by your wife, So-and-So, that you have failed to comply with the direction of the court to pay her——so much——per week. I desire to inform you that unless the direction of the court is complied with at once, a warrant will be issued for your arrest and you may be compelled to furnish a bond to insure the payment of the said money for the support of your family.
Respectfully,
If the man appears in court in response to this notice, all well and good, otherwise he is arrested by an officer and brought before the judge to explain his failure to comply with the direction of the court.
The work of the domestic relations court is constantly increasing as the functions of the court are being more widely heard of throughout the city, especially among the foreign population. The largest number of cases that come before this court are classified under the nationality of Russia. There is an injustice in this classification, however, inasmuch as the “Russians” are 99 per cent. Russian or Polish Jews. Very many of the cases brought by the Jewish women are extremely difficult to handle owing to the fact that the desertion has oftentimes taken place in Europe. A man living in the ghetto of Warsaw or Bialystok or Wilna will decide to come to America to seek his fortune. Not having money enough to bring his wife and family, he starts out alone leaving behind him the assurances that he will return for them, or will send them money to bring them over. As a rule two or three letters at least are sent back to the old country, containing money orders for little sums of money, then the letters will cease. Sometimes the wife waits for four or five or six years before in despair she sets out in quest of her husband. Sometimes she finds him married to some American woman or some woman he has met over here, and then she goes to court with her trouble. The law here is confronted with the situation obviously impossible to handle with equal justice to all parties concerned without working hardship somewhere. The wife from the Old World with her children certainly has first claim upon the man, but at the same time the wife whom he has married here has perhaps married him in good faith, knowing nothing about the other family, and so have her children been born.
The Italians are the second largest nationality in the classification of the domestic relations court cases. The Italians are very apt to be disorderly persons. They are hot tempered, quick to strike and a great many times an Italian wife appeals to the domestic relations court because her husband has been cruel to her and struck her, and this court is obliged to send her to the magistrates court in order that her husband may be treated as a disorderly person. In justice to the Italians of Northern Italy, it should be stated that it is very rare to find an Italian in the domestic relations court who originally came from any province in Italy north of Rome. The great mass of Italians who get into this court are Neapolitans, Calabrians and Sicilians. The third group are from Central Europe, Hungarians, peoples from the Balkan states, Galicia and other provinces of Austria. The French rarely are obliged to appeal to the domestic relations court. The French are naturally a home-loving people, and anything like a domestic break is rare among them. Only two or three times since this court was established have French couples been obliged to appear there. A great many people classify themselves as Americans when as a matter of fact they are foreign born, so that the figures in regard to the number of Americans in this court are misleading. Negroes, however, turn up here in great numbers. Colored men often have no sense of responsibility whatever and they are constantly forsaking their wives and families or going off with somebody else’s wife. The excuses offered by colored men who are haled into this court are often very amusing.