ABSTRACT
The Married Women's Property Act Amendment Bill which was introduced to the House of Commons by Sir Richard Cross and Mr. Hinde Palmer, and is now going through the House of Lords, is a necessary and proper amendment to rectify a defect in the former Bill by which the husband's evidence was not admissible against a wife in cases in which she was made subject by the game section to criminal proceedings. The case which has called forth a decision in the Court of Crown Cases 211Reserved, was that of a woman who had left her husband, and the man who had run away with her was charged with theft of the husband's goods and chattels. There was no question about the elopement, and the stolen articles were found in their possession. They were tried in the Quarter Sessions Court, over which Sir Richard Cross presided, and were convicted, but the counsel for the defence had urged that the aggrieved husband had no right to give testimony, and he was the chief witness. The 16th section, he said, of the Married Women's Property Act, 1882, did not directly render the evidence of a husband admissible against a wife in such cases. On that point Sir R. Cross granted a "case" for the higher Court. The Court of Crown Cases Reserved had to decide whether the evidence of the husband was admissible, and, if not, whether the man who eloped with the woman had been properly convicted. The Act, section 12, provides that every married woman shall have in her own name against all persons, including her husband, all remedies by civil or criminal proceedings to protect her own separate property, as if it belonged to her as a feme sole; and in any proceeding under this section, the husband or wife shall be competent as witnesses against each other. Then section 16 says that a wife doing any act with respect to any property of her husband which, if done by the husband as to the property of the wife, would make him liable to criminal prosecution by the wife under this Act, shall in "like manner be liable to criminal prosecution by her husband." The question was as to the effect of these words "in like manner," with reference to the former section, and whether, in a prosecution by a husband against the wife, they made him a competent witness against her.
