SOLDIER BOY'S MARRIAGE

Dominion, Volume 13, Issue 52, 25 November 1919, Page 6

SOLDIER BOY'S MARRIAGE

CERTIFICATE OBTAINED BY FALSE DECLARATION. By Telegraph—Press Aisoelation. Auckland, November 21. A recant marriage at the Registrar's oliice between a returned eoldier, aged seventeen years, and a girl of fifteen, resulted in the bridegroom, Edgar George Brown, coming before Mr. Hunt, S.M., to-day, on a charge of having made a false declaration for the purpose of securini! ;i marriago certificate. The story of tho evidence clearly inoicated that tho accused believed in the maxim that "all is fair in love or war." At tho time of his arrest Brown'was an orderly in tho soldiers' annexe to tho hospital at Auckland, aud when taxed with having mado a faliw declaration to the Registrar of Marriaees he admitted the charge. His own account of himself was that 110 was the son of a mining engineer, who lived in Sydney, ana' that in 1914, when he was thirteen years of age, he enlisted as a bugler with the Ist Australian Expeditionary Force. He saw service in Egypt, Gailipoli, and France, and was wounded at tho Somme. Ho was invalided home, and discharged in Australia oarlv in May, 1918. The same moutli he came on to New Zealand, and though onlv sixteen years of age, he enlistee' with .the New Zealand Forces, giving his nge ;» twenty-two years. He got as far as Slinir Camp, England, where ho was sorted out as medically' unfit, and sent back to New Zealand. Since his return hv the Reimiera in Slay last ho had been employed by the Defence Department at 'IYentha.ni. and latterly in Auckland. In August last lie met a girl named Gladys Reddawav. ana' though 110 knew she was onlv fifteen years of age, he married her at the Registrar's office, giving her r.amo ns Pauline Henderson, nnd her age as twentv-one years, while he gave his own .U'e as twenty-fivo years. Ha did not endeavour to get the consent of the girl's parents to the marriage, and after the marriago. the girl continued to carry on her work at a confectionery shop, and to live at home. The accused pleaded cuiltv, and was committed to tho Supreme Court for sentence.