DIVORCE COURT.

Evening Star, Issue 4292, 28 November 1876, Page 4

DIVORCE COURT.

The following evidence was given in the case of StanToy v - Stanley, heard before the Divorce CourC HP Monday : Mary Ann the petitioner, stated that she was married to the respondent in St. Paul's Church. Wellington, on the 14th of June, 1864. She resided in Wellington with her husband for six mouthy until they went to Captain Wilson's station, ixi Rangitikei. They lived four months there, and for eighteen months afterwards in Wellington. She then left him, on account of his ill-treatment, drunkenness, and lazy habits. She returned to him for twelve months, and again left him for twelve months for the game reasons, but again lived with him for two years and a half, when he went to Melbourne. From Melbourne he wrote several letters, asking her to rejoin him; but when he returned to Wellington she declined to do so, and subsequently got a protection order ; in consequence of information she had received, she sent to Miss Donnelly, Melbourne, her husband's portrait and some letters received from him. In one letter received from Adelaide he wrote : " Remember you are my first love, and my wife still. Perhaps you are. Mary, dear, I sometimes think t have been twice married." The respondent had ejijrks on his body—a tatoo ring on the joint of lh& third finger of bis right hand, a cross on th/a back of the hand, an anchor and chain on the same arm. and two flags crossed on the other arm. Proceedings had been delayed in consequence ot the difficulty of finding the res pondent, and to procure the presence of Miss Donnelly. At the time of their mar riage he was a private in the Colonial Defence Porce. Ellen Jane Donnelly said she had been married to the respondent at Melbourne hi October in 1872. He was then a brewer She wafl then in the service of Mr Sims, solicitor, At Brighton. Sh« was a homan Catholic, Mid he was, at his own wish, christened in her faith on the morning of her marriage. She left him, after living witb him for six weeks, on account of his ill treatment and his habits, he wanting fcer to keep him, instead of him keeping

her. He had told her he had come from Wellington, where, he said, he had been a partner in a brewery. On hearing reports that he had been married before, she wrote to Mr Staples, of Wellington, whose name she found attached to one of his certificates of character. After she separated from him he remained in Melbourne some time, and used to annoy her at her brother's house, where she was housekeeper. The certificate of marriage put in was given by the priest directly after she was married. She was twenty-tour years of age at the time of her marriage. _ [Witness identified the portrait, and described the tatoo marks.] Mr Stafford put in as portion of the evidence a voluminous correspondence addressed by the respondent to the petitioner and to Ellen Donnelly, and the mother of the latter. He read extracts from each, as showing similarity between the expressions used. The following was an extract from a letter to Mrs Stanley, written from Newcastle : " Dear Mary—l am going on the sea in a leaky old ship. I leave here next week with coals. But I know that God will not neglect me on the deep. Oh, Mary, I have lost all my clothes, and what am I to do on the ocean. Oh, my dear good wife, pray for me, your husband. Oh, Mary, my heart is full cf love for you, the only one that ever I loved. When I think of you it makes me feel so sad. You will see sadness stamped on my face. My thoughts have been day and night on you, my good and only love. T will pray to the great God of Heaven t-> bless you. Remember I have to face Him on the deep. There I shall see his watery works. I will pray to God to bless you, and you will ask Him to guard me on the deep, while you are lying on your soft pillow. Oh, Mary, 1 have put my faith in Him that guards me on the deep. Life has no wretchedness equal to an ill-marriage, It is the sepulchre of the heart. By the ghost of past affection and hope gone for ever, my poor Mary, forgive me for going away to leave you, my wife, to this world of sin. Remember that I am your husband of years. Oh, let us for the future live in happiness and peace, and in the fear of our Maker."

In another to Ellen Donnelly, prior to marriage, he wrote : ' I love you with all my heart and all my soul. I ask you could two be more fond to enter into marriage than we are. Indeed, my own sweet Ellen, this must be pure and heavenly love that God sent from Heaven, (.'ood-bye for the present, thou good and faithful woman. My dear Ellen, yours ever faithful to tb> end.'" After marriage, he wrote thus.:—"l think of you too much. 0, this heart will burst with love. You are the only woman I ever loved in my whole life. Thirty years have 1 kept this heart of love, and it is bursting to share it with you. May the great God of Heaven look down upon you, and keep you happy till I see you again. Ellen, my faith is in God, and all my hope is in my good, and faithful, and loving wife. I must stop this, for it hurts me." He writes afterwards from Auckland, calling her simple liHen Stanley—" You say that lam a married man. There is some great mistake. If I had been married I should not have married you. liemernber you have married a respectable man. I ask you to forgive me for lifting my hand to you." Ho subsequently wrote to her from Fiji, saying :- <'Dear wife—How often do I think of you in my midnight slumbers on the stormy sea—do I think of you, and ask God who rides the storms to protect both you and me. Dear, it is on the ocean that you see God in his wrath, and then again when the cruel sea is calm, how I wish I had you by my side, to tell you how 1 love you, _my young wife. ... I am not married to no wife but you ; you are my first and only love." The Court required that Mr Stafford should produce the evidence of an expert to show whether the second marriage contracted had been in accordance with "the law of that Colony. Mr Stafford was unable to do so at once, and the case has been adjourned till Wednesday next. DYSON V. DYSON AND FORWARD. Dyson, the petitioner, for whom Mr Bell appeared, had been mairied at Arowhenua, Temuka, in lSt>3, and had four of a family ; the co-respondent had been living at his hotel. A week after he left, the petitioner's wife went to Timaru on a pretended visit to some friends. She never returned. He went to Timaru in search of her, and afterwards to Duuedin, where he found her. She admitted she had been living with Forward in Oamaru and Dunedin. She was asked to return for the sake of the children, but declined to return to Temuka, though she was willing to go anywhere else. He took lodgings for her, and returned to Temuka to sell out ; but she shortly sailed for Melbourne, and he never saw or heard from her afterwards. This occurred in IS7O. He had gone through the Bankruptcy Court shortly afterwards, and was not till now in a position to take proceedings. He had been informed that the suit would cost him Ll5O. Abraham Prentice gave evidence as to the respondent and co-respondent occupying a room in his house in Dunedin for a week. He tried to persuade her to return to her husband, but she refused to do so. He had known all the parties in Temuka. Considerable comment was made by some of the Judges on the conduct of the last witness, at conniving at the adultery of the respondent. The Court held the petitioner's case to be proved, and granted a decree n'mi.