WARDER AND HIS WIFE

NZ Truth, Issue 1142, 20 October 1927, Page 6

WARDER AND HIS WIFE

Eva Elizabeth Asks Magistrate For Maintenance

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special WITH all his experience as a Alexander Lemming had lost his wife, Eva Elizabeth. IT was about two years ago that Cupid softly clipped the handcuffs of love on the wrists of Eva and Robert, leading them to the forge of matrimony. The matrimonial bonds, however, were not tempered with the true Jteel of affection; link by link they were severed as the rust of domestic discord settled on the home. Magistrate Page was asked to listen to the troubles that had blighted their married bliss when the wife appealed to the Auckland Maintenance Court last week for a maintenance order on the grounds of cruelty and failure to maintain. Lawyer Matthews held the legal key to Eva's domestic complaints, and elicited the facts by placing his client in the witness-box. Eva's married, life, according to her own story, was just a series of bullyings and bumps. She was not happy and had only lived with her husband for a short seven and a-half months. All she asked for was maintenance sufficient to see her through a forthcoming operation and to extend over the time it would take her completely to recover, together with a further term of a few . months in which she hoped to complete her course of training as a nurse. Robert JLemming's interests were in the custody of Lawyer Dickson, who conducted a rather lengthy crossexamination. Touching on the quarrels that had caused so much strife in the Lemming household, counsel for defendant asked: "Do you remember scratching your husband's face in front of the chief warder of the gaol?" Eva did remember, but it was only

1 Auckland Representative.) warder at Mt. Eden gaol, Robert b a key — the key to the heart of one of many scratchings that had resulted from their perpetual "fightings." Counseji: Do you remember going down Khyber Pass. . . and ' your husband had to carry you in? — No, I do not remember that, but I was told about it later. Why do you not remember it? — Because my husband threw me on the floor and banged my head. You are a nurse by occupation? — Yes, when I have finished my training. Does your husband drink? — Not that I know of.Did you ever try to hang yourself? — Never. v "Come now," persisted the .lawyer, but all Eva knew about such 7natters was that her husband had once tried to strangle her. Counsel: Do you remember once breaking a window? — I locked myself in the wash-house once and my husband broke the window. The wife was further questioned concerning a medical examination she had undergone last July. "Was it suggested then that you try to control your temper?" she was asked. "I have no temper to control," was the reply. Eva denied that she had promised to join her husband in a week's time, for the reason that "he did not treat me as a good husband should and had not acted up to the conditions. He left me and stayed away on the Saturday night." "It is impossible for me to live with him," decared the wife before other witnesses were called upon to corroborate her story. Following the luncheon adjournment, however, it was announced on returning to the court that an amicable settlement had been arranged. j