This was the act
of the _representative_ of the wife and daughters to whom we are
referred, as a better protector of their rights than they themselves
could be.
It may properly be added, that if the action had proceeded to judgment
without interference from the husband, and such amount of damages had
been recovered as a jury might have thought it proper to award, the
money would have belonged to the husband, and the wife could not
lawfully have touched a cent of it. Her attorney might, and doubtless
would have paid it to her, but he could only have done so at the peril
of being compelled to pay it again to the drunken husband if he had
demanded it.
In another case, two ladies, mother and daughter, some time prior to
1860 came from an eastern county of New York to Rochester, where a
habeas corpus was obtained for a child of the daughter, less than two
years of age. It appeared on the return of the writ, that the mother of
the child had been previously abandoned by her husband, who had gone to
a western state to reside, and his wife had returned with the child to
her mother's house, and had resided there after her desertion. The
husband had recently returned from the west, had succeeded in getting
the child into his custody, and was stopping over night with it in
Rochester on the way to his western home.
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