HOME DIVIDED

NZ Truth, Issue 1180, 12 July 1928, Page 9

HOME DIVIDED

Did He Drink Beer On Sundays? (From "N.Z. Truths Wanganui Rep.) A neat little domestic problem was placed before Magistrate J. S. Barton at Wanganui last week, the subject being a house divided. I UCY MORGAN proceeded against " her husband, William Joseph Andrew Morgan, of Imlay, for a separation order on the grounds of persistent cruelty. Lucy, who had Lawyer Currie on her side, brought along a girl and a boy to add . a little weight, while William trusted to Lawyer Tustin to pull him through. A separation order had been granted m 1926, but soon after this an addition to the family was expected, and Lucy made overtures to William to return home. The order was then cancelled by consent. . Giving evidence, petitioner maintained that her husband often came home m a bad temper. He would hit her and catch her by the throat, trying to strangle her. She did not mind the striking so much as the attempts at shutting off her supply of oxygen. When m a temper he would refuse to eat his food and would not put his clothes out to be washed. He also tossed the eldest girl out of the house when petitioner was ill and had several grapples with the 17-year-old son. leaving" him black and blue on one occasion. ■ William also used filthy language m front of the family. It was too bad to repeat m court, but she wrote it down. He also turned the lights out when the second girl was doing her homework, as he considered that she was receiving too much education. Worse than that, he brought home a half-gallon cutter of beer on Saturday nights, and, to annoy her, he would sit on the front verandah on Sunday mornings, m full view of good people going to church, and drink the, beer. ,He also refused to allow any of her friends to visit her, so that she prac- , tically lived m isolation. Under cross-examination, Lucy admitted that she was hot-tempered and sometimes she indulged m a wordy warfare with William when he annoyed her. One night when the previous separation order was m force she ■ hit him with a stick with a nail I m it, because he 'was peeping through a window. A daughter, Edith, stated that her father's language depended very much on the mood he was m. She did not know whether she could write a lot of the language down because she had not heard it before and spelling would be difficult. SOME GENTLE PERSUASION Son Jim was then called to back up his mother. When Morgan went into the box he turned the tables completely. He stated that the night before the case he heard Lucy m her bedroom say to two of the children that she would not take them to court because they would get mixed up and not know what to say. He exhibited the clothes he was attired m and which were covered with dirt and grease. He paid over all his good wages to Lucy, and rarely had a shilling to spend. She would neither buy him clothes nor sew on a button. . One time he bought a record and asked her for the money, and as he saw her purse sticking out of her pocket, he made a grab at it. ... ■■ ■ . - But she took to him immediately, and a daughter came along and finished off the movement by kicking him m the stomach. wife had a most violent temper and a long tongue, and never a week passed without her taking to him with the poker, sometimes knocking him down. "It's a wonder she has not killed me," he added. On one occasion she hit him. with a poker m the back yard m view of a neighbor and then laid him out with a piece of wood. Lawyer Gurrie wanted to know why William was defending the action if he was so badly treated. He replied that he loved his children and also their mother. Every time he had anything to say to the boy, petitioner took the youngster's part and the boy, or- *" dered him put to fight. The magistrate, by this time, had, heard enough, and characterized It as a house divided against itself. He considered that there was no corroboration of acts of persistent cruelty, and said there was apparently unreasonableness on the part of Lucy m regard to money matters, seeing that William had given her £408 during the year. He refused to make the order. .