DISMISSED

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 75, 21 December 1921, Page 7

DISMISSED

HUSBAND’S DIVORCE PETITION. Judgment was delivered in the Supreme Court yesterday by His Honour .Mr. Justice Ilosking in a divorce suit, in which James Osborne (Mr. O’Leary) had asked for dissolution of his marriage with Elizabeth Gate Osborne, on the ground of desertion. Mr. Ward appeared for the respondent. At the hearing it was stated that the parties had been married for upwards of 46 years, being each 63 years of age. They were married in England, coming to New Zealand a few months afterwards. Eight children, of whom five have survived, were born of t'he marriage in ns many years. The respondent's health being not good, she went to lhe Old Country in 1898, under medical advice, and with the consent (admitted in Court) of the petitioner. Seven years later she returned with the children, with the exception of thff eldest son, who remained in England, and the parties resumed mnr* vied life at Sydenham, for about eight months. According to the petitioner, in September of that year, ho was deserted by his wife. In dismissing the petition. His Honour said: "The petitioner mad o a point-blank admission that he lind threatened fo send 'his wife to England or to tho asylum. I believe the petitioner was only too ready to be rid of her, because they could not get on together, and that she was threatened as she stated. Tn my view, her flight from homo was not with the intention of deserting, but of temporarily escaping from t'he fear she was under. Nor do I think that from tho alacrity with which the petitioner paid for her passage to England that he regarded her conduct in the light, of wilful desertion without just cause."