THRASHED

NZ Truth, Issue 1146, 17 November 1927, Page 7

THRASHED

HIS TEMPER

TWO OR THREE

Margaret's Tragic

Marriage

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Rep.) "He lied like a flat-fish," said Lawyer Moody, introducing to Magistrate Hunt at the Auckland Maintenance Court the trouble between his client, Margaret Violet, and her husband, Frederick John Cook. "LIE is a waterside worker; one of the I*■ argumentative type. I think your worship will see when he gets m the witness-box what sort of a man he is." The wife, a smart little woman, left two young sons at the back of the court while she proceeded to relate the story of her unhappy marriage m 1913. "His violent temper is the cause of the whole trouble," she commenced. "Has he ever struck you?" asked her counsel^— ''Yes, just prior to our separation about ten weeks ago. The children have seen him doing so, and he has tried to strangle me." Last December, stated Margaret, her husband had struck her on the thigh with "the butt-end of a razor strop," Dr. Bennett, who attended her, being told that the injuries were the result of "a fall from a ladder." Magistrate: "Was he shaving at the time or did he get the strop out specially?" "No, he was not shaving. He called me names — so I retaliated and told him I was as good as him or his mother." On another occasion her husband had handed her a razor and told her to cut her throat or he would do it for her. During the last six months he had often struck her m the face and had declared that he would rather go to gaol than keep her. "He said he would clear out of the country after this was all over," continued, the wife. "His brother knew an engineer on a boat who could get him a passage to Australia. If he couldn't get that he would get away as a seaman."

There had been some trouble over a boy of seventeen who had been at the house, the husband accusing his wife of improper conduct. ! "About this young boy," asked Lawyer Inder, who acted for the husband. "He is a bigger boy than your husband, is he not?" — "About the same build." "Is he a Rarotongan?" — "No, he is not." "Has he got Rarotongan blood m him?" — "Yes, but very little." "I see. Where were you born— m Rarotonga?"— "Yes." To a series of questions concerning her relations with the youth, the wife admitted that he had been m her room, but there was always one of her sons present. "Your husband told the boy to leave?"— " Tea." "Has he returned frequently since?" — "Only for occasional meals." "Now, Mrs. Cook; you didn't leave your husband — he left you. You say you are prepared to take him back now, so what is really the trouble?" "It's his temper," replied witness, volunteering what she described as a demonstration. "One word led to another," she added. Lawyer Moody: "I think I would have been inclined to empty the frying-pan over his head." Lawyer Inder: "It is quite possible that is what the lady did do!" Frederick Cook then took the box to give a complete denial to the story that he was a man of violent temper and given to displays of rage. | "I have a temper, I admit," he stated. "Most men have, but I don't fly into rages." His explanation of the razor-strop episode was entirely different from his wife's story. It was because she had called him a name m front of one of the sons that he remonstrated with her and they had a "tiff."

"I told her that if she used that word m front of the big boy I should give her a hiding with the strop the same as she gave to the boy. • "She then went over to the boy and used the word mentioned, so I carried out my threat." Magistrate: "How many blows did you give her?" — "Two or three; I was m a rage." Lawyer Moody: "Oh! I thought you safd you didn't get m a rage!" "A hundred years ago you might have been able to beat your wife with a stick as thick as your thumb, but you cannot do it now," observed the S.M. The matter of the youth of Rarotongan blood was boiled down by his worship to the blunt suggestion of misconduct' on the part of the wife. "Generally speaking, is your wife a truthful woman?" asked Lawyer Moody, m opening a cross-examina-tion of the husband. The reply was m the negative. "You mean that she is nothing but a. liar?"— " Yes." Magistrate: "That will do! I believe the wife's story." An order was made for separation with maintenance of £2' a week.