A too Popular Man.

Manawatu Herald, 17 May 1892, Page 3

A too Popular Man.

Quite a romance came before Mr Rawson, R.M., atlnvercargill, lately when a woman laid a complaint that Jas. Brown, horsedealer, her husband, had .deserted her at Wallaectown and left her destitute. The man denied all knowledge of the complainant, and had never seen hel! tin 1 til she came to the hotel where he boarded lnst iliottth and and claimed him as her husband. The woman's story was that hor name was Mary Queely, native of County blare, and that she find defendant had grown up together from childhood and in 1889* when she was 16, they weite iriahiett. Being unable to keep a house they continued to live with their parents, and shortly afterwards Brown emigrated to the colony. Several years passed, during which she never heard from him, but rumours occasionally reached her of liis wliereabouts. She came to New Zealand in 1889, and ns her husband had the marriage certificate she brought an acknowledgement from the priest who had married them. She settled in Hokitika, where she had a half brother and sister, .ftiid cooked for her living, ftlt the tiliie hialdng inquiries about her husband. Learning that he was living in Invercargill, and seeing his name attached to horse advertteeliletits: she gate up her situation and came hero and now" identified defendant as the man to whom she was married, although he denied that he knew her. In cross-examination she said that Miss Kelly, of Westport, and Martin Clohesy, of lleeftoit, knew both her and her husband. They were in the village when they, were married, and although not present knew that the ceremony took place. Although she, hud been an atfceu.dUlit in a lunatic asylum, her association with patients had not affected her mind. She had never claimed any other man as her husband, and had always gone by the name of Mrs Brown. Defendant's counsel said that was the second woman in New Zealand who had claimed him as husband. His Worship refused to make an order.