in Court Procedure.--A sore point with the social
worker is the often ridiculously inadequate amounts that unwilling
husbands are put under court order to pay. They accuse the courts,
whether rightly or wrongly, of considering first what part of the man's
alleged earnings will be needed for him to live upon comfortably, and
then of making the order for whatever may be left over.

Onofrio Mancini was under court order to stay away from home and pay
his wife $6.00 a week for the support of their two children, He
drove a two-horse truck, and, at that time, must have been earning
not less than $16.00 a week. Mrs. Mancini fell ill, whereupon
Onofrio promptly ceased all payments. The social agency interested
was permitted to make a complaint on producing a doctors certificate
that Mrs. Mancini could not appear in court; but Onofrio, when he
appeared, put up such a hard luck tale of earning only $8.00 a week
that the judge, without investigation, cut the order down to $4.00 a
week and _ordered Onofrio to return home to live_.

A bulletin issued by the Seybert Institution of Philadelphia gives a
very interesting set of diagrams showing the relation (or lack of
relation) between the amount of man's income, size of family, and the
court order issued in the Philadelphia Municipal Court.[48]

This report gives a series of illustrations, where glaring
inconsistencies between the man's earnings and the court order were
observed by visitors to the court. A sample of the reports made by these
visitors is as follows:

"Man earning $30 to $40 a week at ammunition factory. Can earn $20
with no overtime. Has been sending woman $10 a week but has
threatened to leave town. Judge said: 'You can't keep up $10 a
week--how much can you give?' Finally ordered $8 a week. Woman said
she couldn't live on that and Judge told her she had to go to work
herself then; that they should live together anyway. Woman says she
is unable to work--is ill. When man stated he was giving $10 great
consternation seemed to take hold of the entire court force. He did
not say he couldn't pay $10; the judge simply told him he couldn't
keep that up."

The practice of assigning less than half the man's weekly earnings to
the wife and children has been defended on the ground that if he is
forced to live too economically, he will disappear and the family will
be left with nothing. This wou