Other agencies in other cities report a state of affairs quite as serious.
Laws have been passed in most States making family desertion a misdemeanor, and in New York a recent law has made it a felony.
Unfortunately there has been devised no machinery to enforce these laws, so they are practically non-existent.

It is true that if the deserting husband is arrested he may be sent to jail or to the rock pile.
But that does not cure him nor support his family.

Mostly he is not arrested.

He has only to take himself out of the reach of the local authorities.

In New York a deserting husband, though he is counted a felon, needs only to cross the river to New Jersey to be reasonably safe.