THE OLD, OLD STORY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2250, 11 October 1889, Page 2

THE OLD, OLD STORY.

-An old wo ro ah whose recorded name need not be given, beoanse it is only assumed, and that which the law entitles her to bear, 1b well forgotten, appeared at the Police Oourt daring last week on a charge of vagrancy, and waa teat to gool for aix mon'b.B— her fifty-second oonviotion What a record of eia and fchame. What a pictnre of degradation the nnfortunate wretoh presented. She waa pointed oat to me tbe day before her arrest, and her story told me. Truth is as strange as fiction in her case, and the factß as told me — and as they are — do not materially differ from thoao related by Ouida in " Held In Bondage." Let mo give you a sketch of the sad record. It is ever thirty years ago that a yonng squatter in Victoria married one of the faireat daughters of New Booth Wales, and took her to a beautiful home on the Werribee Biver. The lady's health became dollcate, and the frequently vUited friends in Melbourne her husband hoping that the change would do her good, After a time it beotme evident that ehe wu very unhappy, and ultimately she declined to live at Werribee longer, and they went to live In Melbourne. Bat this necessitated frequent visits by him to the station. On his return on one occasion he received some news whloh had a very disquieting efleot on him. It was an aoonsatlon against bia wife's fidelity; fie felt that there wai estrangement of her iffeotlons, but, In the absence of any Impropriety, said nothing. On one oooseion, when at Werribee, he was suddenly called to Melbourne, He found his home deserted — hla wife had fled, whither he knew not. For ten years he did sot ascertain whither she had gone} he knew with whom, and made no enquiry. She was goqe-i— was dead to him, Ten years after he saw a drunken woman picked up in Sussex street, Sydcey, and as the police dragged her past ha eaw her face. It was his wife, still beautiful, but drunken, d bandied, dissolute. She had been deserted a few months after her flight, »nd her paramour, an opera singer, had gODs to England. The husband, who through these long years had borne the iron (n bis roul without one word, followed the police to the station, bailed the woman out, sent her to lodgings, and, though never speaking one word to her, allowed her £3 per week during suoh time as she abstained from flagrant immorality. The payments were not for long, ae within three months the woman had returned to a life of infamy in the lowest streets in Sydney. Ten years ago she cime to Queensland. Like Fantine, God's part in her has been battered ont, and now, over fifty years of age, she Is one of the most depraved and wretched-looking of the loathsome beings who lie drank of nights in the cold and dews on North Quay. All refinement has gone from her ; she is just a foulmouthed, hard*drinking, bedraggled, bemlred wretch. And her husband ? The kindly ficgor of death was laid upon him. fifteen years ago. He never reaovered the shook, tha terrible dlegraoe, his irreparable- dishonour. — " Gymple Times,"