A SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ROMANCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1030, 20 December 1883, Page 4

A SOUTH AUSTRALIAN ROMANCE

•, The Port Adelaide correspondent of one of the Adelaide journals gives the following details relating to a recent police court case which attracted a good deal of -attention :—“We have had a little romance to enliven us. All your nautical readers are no doubt familiar with a very valuable publication known as‘Sawtell’s Nautical Almanac.’ The publisher of that book is a Mr A. E. Sawtell, living at Port Adelaide, and conducting an extensive business. He has a pretty and accomplished ’daughter, who, he says, is eighteen years old; and he ought to know, though others not bearing the same relation to her avow that she is twentyone. There worked at the Port, as clerk to a shipping agency firm, a young man of color, commonly known as Black Sam. He is a very clever, well-educated young fellow, and is the son of a wealthy planter in the Isle of France. The planter married a black lady, and the issue of the marriage is Black Sam, or, to use his proper name, Mr Momphlait, a French creole. Well, our friend met Miss Sawtell and at once :;made court to her, going, so it is said, in a straightforward fashion to the father, and telling him he loved his daughter, and all the rest of it. The father would have none of him, and, of course, the old result followed. The couple ran up to town after a while and got married by a Mr Mudge, who combines with an agency business the pastorship of a branch of the Methodist Church, and who now is accused bitterly for permitting the marriage to take place, although in truth he does not appear to be very blameworthy. After ! the ceremony Miss Sawtell, like the good girl she was, went to her father’s house, and Momphlait, like the plucky fellow that he was, went after her and claimed her as his bride. The father wouldn’t let her go, however, and within a day or two he summoned the . bridegroom to the police Court to answer a charge of making a false declaration of the age of the girl. The unfortunate fellow now stands committed for trial, but he has all the public sentiment; with .hitrij and is admired by all who like this sort of romance. He was admitted to bail, which, like the cost of his defence, is said to be subscribed for him by admiring friends. ’Adayortwo after the committal the cirl managed to get loose from the paIjeroal mansion, and the newly-wedded couple are now living in a snug little ( cpt.pf their own. It is believed that ‘ \he.prosecution of the young fellow will not be continued.”