chiatrists. The best examples of
both these courts have, however, facilities for the making of physical
examinations and mental tests, where necessary, before adjudication.
Judge Hoffman says that the fact that so many cases in courts of
domestic relations disclose abnormal or perverted sex habits, makes
important the services of a psychiatrist accustomed to diagnosing these
conditions.[51]

In most states the jurisdiction of the courts of domestic relations
should be extended and co-ordinated. Few states escape some glaring
inconsistencies in the laws governing desertion and abandonment. There
is, for instance, much confusion between states as to whether a woman
whose husband brings her to a strange city and there deserts her must
prosecute him in the city where their home is or where the desertion
took place. Under certain circumstances the woman is forced to travel to
the city where her husband has gone, and bring action against him there,
if the courts in that place will entertain a suit. In New York state
there is no law which covers the case of a man who abandons his wife
while she is pregnant, if there is no other living child. To constitute
an extraditable crime there must have been abandonment of a child _in
esse_ not merely _in posse_.

But no institution, however carefully established by law, is any more
effective than the people who run it; and the usefulness of the domestic
relations court in any community depends entirely upon the
social-mindedness and freedom from political entanglement of the judge
and the amount and quality of probation service. From a social point of
view, the latter is more important than the former; for a bad decision
of the court can be mitigated by good case work later on, while a poor
probation officer may nullify the effects of the wisest judicial
decision ever made.

The importance of having enough probation officers to handle the work of
the court has already been touched upon. An overworked officer is
perforce an inefficient officer. He has usually to spend at least half
his time in the court and attending to the clerical end of his job. From
50 to 60 cases is probably all that one probation officer can be
expected to handle thoroughly at one time, if, as is to be hoped, he is
required to make careful preliminary investigations to be presented to
the judge _before_ the trial.

In training and in equipment for the job, probation officers should be
the equals of case worker