A ROMANTIC ELOPEMENT

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1865, 12 June 1888, Page 3

A ROMANTIC ELOPEMENT

The CampbelltowQ settlement was startled out of its usual placidity on Monday by the announcement that a very unusual kind of elopement had taken place. It appears that Mr Joha Mudford, a Bottler living on Jone/ line, on coming into the house at dinner time, from a paddock m the immedutse vicinity where ho had been wo. king, instead of finding his dinner *on the table found a Dote there, which had been written ty his wife, informing him that she had made up her mind to leave him, that he would be better without her, and that she intended to go to Feilding, and from thence to Wadganui. About the same time it was found that two young men, named respectively David, and Arthur Hickford, the first-named of whom had been blamed by rumor with too much familiarity with the defaulting lady, had also disappeared. They had left their residence m the morning m their working clothes, with tools, biliy, etc , oatenaibly to go to work, but an examination of their boxes revealed the fact that they had eecre'ly removed everything belongs ing to them. Where the trio intend to spend their tarrymoon no one know ou Monday night, as there was no olne to the direction they had taken. There 1b a good deal of oympathy with the parents of thu young men and the huaband, aB they are thoroughly respectable. The worst feature of the oaae ia that the woman has heartlessly abandoned her family of four little children, one of whom is aiokly and doliOAte, and the yoangeßl a mere baby, being only twelve or fourteen months old. s Later news proves that the tin 6 3 took paaeago by the train at middty, went to Foxton, and afterwards travelled by the evening train northwards. The elder man hue, it is ■aid, victlmiaod a Foil ding storekeeper m baylog Query for the woman, and a Oampbelltown settles would also like to interview him because of a debit btlanoa. — "Eangitikei Advooate."