232 / 262
marital cases that came to court 28 were due to violence,
16 to adultery, 22 to drink, 9 to mental troubles, 10 to
"shotgun'" marriages, 1 to religious differences, 3 to
gambling, 2 to meanness on the part of the husband,
and 2 to the mother-in-law problem.
The breakdown in married life was a social problem,
and he did not think that nearly enough had been done
to investigate its cause. It was a serious problem, because
the family was the basic unit of society, and all our
resources should be given to seeing what could be done
to prevent it getting worse.
Vagrancy Act
Justice Good said he regretted that since he spoke a
year ago against the Vagrancy Act of 1824—under
which a person can be imprisoned for three months for
having no visible means of support—nothing had been
done to change it. To him it appeared to be basically
wrong that it should remain on the statute book, and
the sooner it was removed the better.
Referring to a recent case of a young girl prosecuted
under the Act he said it eventually transpired that she
had left her home in the country and came to Dublin
in search of work. She was picked up by gardai, who
were obliged to bring her to court. She was over four
months pregnant. He had her sent to a convent who
catered for girls in her position, but there was no law
to oblige her to stay there and be looked after. Yet she
could have been sent to prison for three months, and,
under the Vagrancy Act, be declared "a rogue and a
vagabond". That would be a complete injustice.
He praised the gardai for the humane way in which
they administered the law, and said the prison service
came in for a lot of unjust criticism. The trouble was
that prisoners were not graded according to their crim-
inal tendencies. Many people went to jail just because
they were sick, and these included many drug addicts,
who were in need of psychiatric help. It was wrong that
our prisons did not have their own psychiatric service.
Mr. Donal Barrington, S.C., also spoke. Professor
Denis Donoghue, president of the association, presided.
The Irish Times
(23 October 1973)
CORRESPONDENCE
8 South Great George's Street, Dublin.
18th October 1973.
Dear Mr. Gavan-Duffy,
There is a notice displayed in the Stamping Office,
Dublin Castle, showing that there is a very large number
of documents in that office, awaiting collection by
solicitors.
The solicitors concerned may have overlooked the
collection of the documents, and I would suggest that
in the next issue of your
Gazette,
you insert a paragraph,
drawing attention to the notice.
Such a paragraph may help solicitors to find docu-
ments which they may think were lost.
T . FINBARR O ' R E I L LY
BOOKS WANTED
Irish Reports complete to 1967 wanted.
Reply — Box No. 11/2.
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