SINGULAR RELATIONSHIP.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3171, 27 August 1881, Page 4

SINGULAR RELATIONSHIP.

At Leeds, recently, a case was heard in which some singular revelations were made. Daniel M'• lroy, printing machine feeder, was summoned for assaulting his wife, Ann M'Elroy. Mr Alfred Watson, who appeared for the complainant, said the circumstances connected with the case were of a very extraordinary nature. . His client married the defendant in 1871, though she was at that time, and the defendant knew it, married to a man named Michael Hart. Notwithstanding this ffti't, the defendant under a threat made her marry him. About a fortnight ago he married Mary Ann Saynor, a young woman who, it, would be remembered, had recently been before that Court. The complainant was much annoyed on leai'ning of his second marriage. On one evening the parties met, and tho complainant upbraided her rival for her conduct, whereupon the defendant began to use abusive language to the former and to assault her. The following day the women met in the street and had a quarrel. The complainant was called to give evidence. She stated that she had not heard anything about her first husband for fourteen years, and did not know whether he was dead or alive. The defendant had threatened to cut her throat if she did not marry him. On the occasion -when the assault took place she asked Saynor what she was doing with her husband, to whom she (the complainant) has had six children. The defendant replied, "She is my wife, and that is what you never were," and thereupon seized tho complainant by the hair of the head and assaulted her, whilst Saynor got away. In consequence of the injuries which the defendant inflicted upon her, she had had to be attended by a medical man. In cross-examination complainant stated that in 1865 she was married to Michael Hart, who subsequently absconded to escape

apprehension on a charge of felony. She was not awaro that he die 1 . ; r .Tnnun.rv last. In cross-examination Saynor or M'ltlroy stated that she knew that M'Elroy was a married man before she married him, but she understood that tho former marriage was illegal. Daniel M'Elroy was committed to prison for thi'oo months with hard labour, and the summons against Ann M'Elroy was dismissed.