A HEARTLESS DESERTION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1435, 21 January 1885, Page 2

A HEARTLESS DESERTION.

A very sad case indeed has been brought under the notice of the emigration agent for Tasmania, of which 1 am enabled to give the following sketch For some six weeks past a married woman and her baby boy have been living at Gravesend, dependent for all the necessaries of life on the compassion of the boatmen there. The case is indeed intensely sad. The young'mother is a native of Hobart, and her father has, I understand, been in the Civil Service of the island colony for the past twenty years. Soma year and a half ago the lady referred to was married, in opposition to the wishes of her parents, to a young man then occupying a very fair position in a mercantile establishment in Tasmania. He carried bis wife off to New Zealand, and after staying there some time, came to England quite recently in the steamship Catalonia. Ha obtained a little employment in a newspaper office at Gravesend, but, owing to certainirregularities of his, had to leave. Instead of endeavouring to obtain farther employment, he formed acquaintanceship with a very fast set of persons, and one night he told hia wife that he had obtained a good situation in Birmingham, and must leave for it at once. In order to raise the necessary funds all the wife’s jewellery was pawned, and she was left in Gravesend absolutely penniless. On arriving in London the scoundrel coolly wrote to hia wife stating that the supposed situation was a myth, and that it was only an excuse for lidding himself of her and her child. Since writing this heartless letter, the fellow has not bean heard of, and the poor young wife, with her baby three months old, has been left to shift aa.best she could. ihe Gravesend boatinen, knowing the facts of this sad tale, have clubbed together every Saturday night—very much to their honor, be it said, in these hard times—to assist one of'their number who kindly gave the young mother a shelter. The old boatman, indeed, said that “ ha ’adn’t the ’eart to turn the poor oreetura out,” and so this noble fellow has probably saved both from actual starvation. This sad incident came under the notice of Mr Humphries, and he at once sought an interview with the deserted wife, and elicited the whole of the facta above narrated. He found that the sole anxiety of this poor lady was to return to Hobart; and consequently Mr Humphries at once put himself in communication with Messrs Staley, Radford and Co., the gentlemen who up to the present have obtained all the contracts for conveying Government emigrants to 'I asmania. Mr Staley, on hearing all the facts, at once generously offered to provide a passage, and so the wife and baby go oat in the EarjihsnThus this poor woman, who has been so heartlessly deserted, will now be enabled to reach her father's home, Mr Staley will no doubt be gratefully remembered by the young matron for the generous and prompt way in which he came to her rescue under such heartrending circumstances — Anglo-Australian.