AN AMUSING CASE.

Evening Star, Issue 3460, 25 March 1874, Page 2

AN AMUSING CASE.

Some amusement was caused in the E. M. Court this aftern6on by the case of Mouat v Johnson. The plaintiff, John Mouat, a laborer, sought to recover L 47, alleged to have been advanced to the defendant, Catherine Johnson, spinster, to enable her to fulfil her alleged promise to marry him Mr Johnson appeared for the plaintiff, and Mr M'Keay for the defendant. The plaintiff, in hia evidence, said - that in March last he became acquainted the defendant at the house of Mrs Thomson, Walker street, and there proposed marriage to her and was accepted. She not having money to get an outfit and furniture be advanced her L47—Ll7 when she accepted him and L3O afterwards. When she afterwards declined to marry him he asked her to return his money, and she told him to go to out of the house. On a subsequent Saturday (March 7), when he again Meat for his money: the . door was shut in witness’s face. In cross-examination plaintiff said: I am a Shetlander and defendant is a Shetland girl. I take an interest in Shetland girls. I have been to Mrs Thomson’s about Shetland girls several times. 1 didn’t care to what country the girl belonged. I knew her before she went up country. I had met her at Willow Lodge, Maclaggan street. No one was present when I gave her the money. I never asked her in Mrs Thomson’s presence for either LIOO or L7O that I had given her, nor did I. ever say I gave her those sums. I never said I gave her the L3O because she was to get m tried to a young man. When I gave her the Ll7 she said she had not got any wages, or she would nob have asked me for money. I consider it was to bind me to her—(Laughter). That was all she said. When I gave her the L4O she said she hadn’t any money to get the necessary things—her wedding outfit. I consider that an offer of marriage. I am only 48 ; I swear that. To Mr Johnson : When I gave her the Ll7, she promised to live with me as my wife. By his Wor hip ; I would not have given her the money if she had not so promised. 1 have a house of my own.—Mr M'Keay, having addressed the Court, called the defendant, who deposed: I am a domestic servant, and have been in the Colony seventeen months. On arrival 1 went to a boarding-house in Maclaggan street, where my brother was staying. I remained there six weeks and afterwards went to service. I first saw Mout at Mrs Miller’s, Walker street. He came there four days after 1 returned from a situation. I had been in the country. I had previously told Mrs Thomson not to let him know that I was in town, because 1 did nob want to see him as 1 heard he had been slandering me. He asked me to go out a walk with him, but I said I did not think I would. 1 said 1 did not think it was right. Mrs Thomson said he would only be swearing after me; bo J. went out with him. I never knew the old fell,qw was in Jove with me till to-day. ; (Loud laughter.)—l never offered marriage to him, nor he to me. I Ijad money in the Savings Bank. I have’nt received a penny from him, nor did I ever borrow any from him. Subsequently, in Mrs Thomson’s presence, when he was drunk, he asked me to : come and stop at his place, which he had had cleaned out, until 1 got a better situation. He also asked me to go to an hotel with him, but I refused. -Mr Bathgate: What made him ask you to go to an hotel ? —The man wanted me comfortable, you know.-(Laughter.) He then asked me to give him the L 10() he had given me. Mrs Thomson asked how much he gave me, and he replied 1.70 ; but when I spoke to him he said the amount was only L3O. I then asaed him whathe gave me the money for, and he replied with a grin, "I know very well why 1 gave it to you. You are going to get ma ned to a young man who cannot dress you, and I will do it for spite.” I never got a penny from him.—ln answer to vtr M 'Keay, defendant said an action for libel against Mouat at her suit was pending.—Mrs Thomson, at whose house the “contract” was alleged to have been made, corroborated Miss Johnson’s evidence, and in some particulars contradicted that of the plaintiff.— His Worship, in giving judgment, said to believe plaintiff g story would be to believe '

that defendant, a respectable domestic, had bo'm guilty of deliberate swindling, which he could not believe. Plaintiff’s story was possibly the effect of drinking. Judgment for defendant, with cost*.