Philogynous Judges

Judges of England's High Court last week prepared to fight the 20%, reduction of their salaries under the "economy act" of 1931. Reason: they are not (they claim) "servants of the Crown," for whom the cuts were ordered, but dignitaries who may be removed only by majority vote of both houses of Parliament and with the approval of the King. One procedure open to them is a petition of right, in which case they would hear their own suit against the Government. Since English judges are well paid (the Lord Chief Justice receives -L-8,000 per year; the Chief Justice of the U. S. $20,500) such a move might not be popular. But as if by magic last week appeared news that focused public attention on the judiciary, especially the attention of women voters, of whom there are more than there are men.

In Cambridge a grocer's assistant named John Dover Place sued Dr. Charles Frederick Searle, charging the doctor had enticed his wife Gwendoline from his home. Evidence showed Grocer's Assistant Place spent four nights a week at the Rose & Crown public house. Wig askew, Sir Henry Alfred McCardie, England's handsome, black-eyed bachelor judge, said:

"I must tell you that a woman's body does not belong to her husband. It is her own property, not his. . . . She can leave her husband by her own will . . . and can decide whether and when to bear children. . . . She is a citizen, not a serf."

Englishwomen hailed the decision as giving them new freedom. Surly male editors pointed out that women already have more freedom than men because: 1) a woman may collect damages if charged with infidelity, but a man must prove pecuniary loss; 2) money passing from wife to husband is a loan, from husband to wife a gift; 3) a deserting wife must be taken back, but one husband could not get a separation even after his wife had chopped him with a butcher knife.

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