AFTER MANY YEARS

NZ Truth, Issue 1153, 5 January 1928, Page 5

AFTER MANY YEARS

Parting of The Ways For Elderly Couple

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Wellington Rep.)

For a long period of time, Alfred Henry Southee and his wife have

had their home in the northern end of the Hutt Valley, Wellington. THEY journeyed along the road of life together for thirty-five years, their needs being few and their pursuits simple. He, as husbandman, tended the herds and flocks and tilled the soil; she looked after his physical needs and in the- passage of time ten children were born to the couple. But there came a time when the fealty and love which was theirs began to wane and the man, Alfred Henry Southee, failed to bring home the fruits of his labors, requisite and necessary to provide sustenance and living for his wife and younger children. This task fell to the lot of a son who had reached man's estate. And in tSie fullness of time Soathce senior acquired a taste for liquor and spent his hard-earned coin upon beer. Over a number of years he carried on this practice, leaving to his children the honor of providing victuals for the woman of his choice. Many a time he returned to the domestic- hearth in a state of befuddlement owing to the amount of liquor he had consumed, and hia wife had recourse to the law and prohibited him from procuring it. On five occasions she had recourse to the law In an endeavor to turn her man from the evil that corrupted him. But it was all of no avail. Over a number of years he failed to clothe and feed her, and, so she said, he even descended to brutality and struck [ her, leaving the mark of his strength [ behind her ear. These latter years of worry and strife began to tell upon her. She became ill and hospital treatment followed. The ravages of the years however, could not be erased in a month. When she again returned to the shelter that was hers, she found that he whom she had once promised to honor and obey had locked the portals of the door. The - boring of a hole, through which he had placed a chain and padlock added to the security. But if her husband had forsaken her she still retained the filial affection j^of her children and she sheltered under the roof of a mar; ried daughter. Her spouse followed and made the air thick with threats. When at last she returned to her own hearth, the golden quiet of the evening was broken by an unseemly brawl. ...^ THE WIFE'S PLEA Existence under these conditions be- :■■'. came intolerable and once again she had recourse to the law,- but this time she asked that peace should be hers in her declining days and that her husband should no longer have the right to live under the same roof. She told ' her fale.; under the legal • guidance of her champion," Lawyer A*. J. Mazengarb, before Magistrate Salmon in the Upper Hutt Court, who based her desire for separation on the ' grounds of cruelty, drunkenness and failure to maintain. Her husband, through Lawyer J. F. R. Wallace, denied the impeachments and brought certain evidence to bear upon the matter. He stated he had bought her a motor-car, but his wife refuted the tale. Alfred said he was no man to row. On one occasion his wife and son and daughter had planned to molest him. They had gone to the trouble of straightening out pieces of iron with which to belabor him, and at a given time had knocked him to the floor with a small wooden brush.

He had been belabored unmercifully, his evidence continued. His face waa all cut about necessitating medical attention. . He still wanted his wife to live with him..- .-,

But it was all of no avail for Magistrate Salmon 'weighed the pros and cons and at: last granted the wife's request,, holding that the charges of drunkenness and failure to maintain were proven.

He also ordered that Southee should support his wife to the extent of £1 a week, with an additional 10/- for the sustenance of his younger son, who must stay with his mother.