AN INVISIBLE CO-RESPONDENT.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5351, 22 May 1878, Page 2

AN INVISIBLE CO-RESPONDENT.

In one of the suits set down for healing at the present sittings: of the Supreme Court in its divorce aud matrimonial jurisdiction, great anxiety has been caused to the solicitors for the petitioner in consequence of the mysterious wanderings and behavior of the man who ought to be summoned as the co-respondent. It is not very long since Ins presence was too much a matter of notoriety, but now he has gone.; One fine morning he “folded his tent like the Arabs, aud silently stole away.” Being a miner, he more exactly imitated the son of the desert than have most persons to whom the simile has been applied, for he took his calico house on his back and he stole away ; that is; he stole away another man's* wife and worldly goods. D p to this-.time he has not been served with the usual!*citation, aud somebody has to swear that all due efforts have been made to find him.' ’(Jounsshforthe petitioner said he was in a position to produce evidence as to the practical impossibility of serving the missing man, for. the reason that ho was unknown. It had been alleged tliat he had been seen in Otago with his hair dyed aud hia appearance so thoroughly changed that no person could recognise him unless from information received. To make matters worse it was rumored that he had gone to Australia. The difficulty of finding a man with name unknown and dyed hair in Australia is not likely to be surmounted. Counsel, impressed with the difficulties which beset the attorney in the case, said: “I call the attention of your. Honors to the fact that in a country; of this kind, where there are a number of people moving about, it is often practically impossible to find a man and identify him. That is’especially the case on the goldfields, and probably less strictness would be required in a case of kind, in which the adultery will be proved, and no damages sought.”. Curiously enough, iu England it had been laid down that the only solution of its beingconsidered necessary that a co-respondent should 'be served was to enable him to rehabilitate his character by disproving the charge made against him. That seemed to be the only ground upon which it was held to be essential that a corespondent should be served. In a case where there was no collusion, and no damages were claimed, and the co-respondent was ! a man unknown, it was to be apprehended that the Court would not insist too strongly upon actual service. , ' ? ' The invisible co-respondent might be described in the manner unfortunate men too often were when found in one of the New Zealand rivers, as—“ Name unknown."