Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 37, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 January 1902 — WIFE ABANDONMENT A FELONY. [ARTICLE]

WIFE ABANDONMENT A FELONY.

First Minneapolis Husband to Suffer a Penalty Under a Minnesota Law. To George A. Kenney belongs the distinction of being the first man convicted in Minneapolis under the new law treating abandonment of or failure to support a wife as a felony. The court was lenient with him and gave him the lowest penalty—only ninety days in the workhouse—instead of the limit of three years in the penitentiary. Mr. Kenney’s bad eminence should be a warning to other men, says the Minneapolis Tribune, who are inclined to neglect, evade or shirk their duty to their families. The Minnesota law is a new departure In sociology. Heretofore such offenses have been treated as misdemeanors. The delinquent husband could be fined—in which case the wife usually hustled around and raised the money to pay—or compelled to give bonds for good behavior or sent to jail in default of security. But now he is confronted by a hard-labor proposition. If his failure to support his family arises from laziness he tinds that he has “jumped out of the frying pan into the fire,” in being compelled to work for the Stnte under more disagreeable conditions than free labor could possibly Involve/ If he has means or property he would naturally prefer to draw upon his resources rather than incur a penal sentence. It Is not to be presumed that the average man will sin more than once In this direction if the law Is vigorously enforced against him. If he can show that be has done the best be can and that bis failure to support his family arises from loablllty to find employment that is, of course, a good defense. This law gives the wife a better chance than she had before. She can insist that her bus perform his

whole duty ns the family provider and if he willfully refuses or neglects to do so fatie can have him “sent up” and *0 get rid of him. Its enactment Is an Important step in the direction of the practical accomplishment of women’s rights.