NO DISCIPLE OF BACCHUS

NZ Truth, Issue 1186, 23 August 1928, Page 8

NO DISCIPLE OF BACCHUS

Brindle's Wife Paints Him In Beery Colors, But Judge Rejects Her Story "LIFE OF MISERYrjAYS PETITIONER (From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Wellington Representative.)

I TIfHEN Carrie Brindle asked for the dissolution of her marriage with Frederick Brindle, she should not have embroidered her f I VV facts with such a fringe of pxotic threads and bright strands of by-play, fudge Sim, who decided that her husband htid not been i j guilty either of continual inebriacy or failing to provide her with food and raiment, repeatedly warned her not to exaggerate, but she | 1 and her children continued wildly to splash color into the atmosphere of the Wellington Supreme Court, the judge's advice 1 | notwithstanding. j | Mrs. Brindle, an attractive woman m her way, manifested all the emotions which a movie star would be asf^ed to register before § 1 a phalanx of photographers. The over-dramatic opulence with which she detailed many supposed incidents m her married life, prob- | | ably inspired Counsel " Archie " Sievwright to ask her whether she was an actress. Counsel R. Kennedy was briefed by her, and | | although his tact and skilfulness were brought to bear on what at times was an over-done narration of events, he could not obliterate § 1 the effect of definite evidence brought by the defence. • |

HiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiriiiiiiiiiinniiniiiiiiiiiiiii MRS. BRINDLE lowered her voice when it seemed appropriate to do so, raised it m an expression of 'horrified denial, or waved her hands m an expression of ' pseudo-tragedy when occasion demanded. Her story began "m this way: , Their married life was nothing less than a veritable orgy of week-end drunkenness, for no sooner had he recovered from the effects of one weekend's drinking than he would sink his sensibilities m another bout. ' . In those 'days the English publichouses were open till midnight, and on Saturday afternoons, when work was over, Brindle would repair with his friends to a neighboring hotel arid stay there till closing time. "He was always nasty, always unpleasant, when drunk . . . and that was throughout our married life ... a life of misery," said Mrs. Brindle. In 1920, he was 'discharged from his employment on account of his continued inebriacy, she said, and although she previously had been successful on two occasions m pleading with his employers, the third time found her unsuccessful. From the date of his dismissal, late m 1920, until his arrival m New Zealand some three years afterwards, Brindle did not follow his occupation as a tailor's cutter, but his habits as a tippler grow worse, declared his wife. Mrs. Brindle and the children followed him to New Zealand some six months later aa assisted immigrants. He met them at the wharf and took them to a furnished house m Kelburn, a Wellington suburb associated with the pleasant atmosphere of the "better" folk. Although there was a house for them, there was no money, and Mrs. Brindle was constrained to pawn her jewellery so that the family might be fed. . • After a few months at Kelburn, the Brindles migrated to Karori, where they were living under circumstances which were not far; short of remarkable. They went to Karori without any furniture whatever, and so sorry was their plight that friends of theirs were obliged to succour them by lending various articles of furniture. The children slept on mattresses laid out on the floor, while the parents slept on a bed also borrowed from friends.

First Five Years

During the first eight or nine years of their married life, her husband paid her 25/- a week, out of which she paid 7/G a'week m rent, which was increased to 8/6 a week towards the latter part of the period m question. In 1914 he increased her household allowance to thirty shillings, and subsequently amplified it by a further ten shillings till the war ended m 1918. Even during his periods of idleness, he somehow contrived to secure sufficent liquor to render him incapable. Mrs. Brindle subscribed to the suggestion that her hUßband found the money from that which he withheld from her during the time he was working. Things came to such a ipass that at length she left him m July, 1926, up to which time she had received not more than £50 from him since the day he met her on the wharf at "Wellington some two years previously. So acute were the family circumstances throughout the first five years m Manchester, that Mrs. Brindle turned one of the rooms into a small cafe-bar, where the public could secure hot food. Although, during those five years, she brought four children into the world, Mrs. Brindle was forced to care for her young .family m addition to her multifarious duties m the cafe. Had she not labored m the way she did witness said, she never could have maintained herself and her young children. Before the war Brindle's salary amounted to £4 a week, but when he was appointed head cutter at the W.S. factory his emolument increased to £6 a week, yet his wife received no apparent benefit from his rise m status. When Brindle was dismissed from his employment, he did not display any intention of seeking another job. Instead, he hung round the little shop, and when he desired more money for drink he would take what he required from the till, declared his wife. Gradually the little business was undermined by the drunken conduct of her husband, Who would arrive home m a state of complete intoxication and order all the customers to leave the premises. Some time before the proceedings they had mutually agreed to separate, but when he begged her to allow him to return home—and because of his ceaseless appeals—she at length agreed, provided his conduct should experience a change. , He was taken back, but the old order had not changed. Shortly after his return he was back again m his old habits. ■ ' ' _ . „ At three o'clock one morning Brindle was brought home by a constable, who had found him speechlessly drunk after an orgy of rum-drinking. At times he was so dangerously drunk that Mrs. Brindle and her children, m their night attire, sought protection m the police station—he would smash things to left and right of him. ' Tn 1928 he left Manchester for New Zealand. ■ ■ Shortly after his departure the bailiffs entered their home, because her husband had not continued his payments on the house property. .Finally, the crescendo of trouble

m the home was too great for Mrs. Brindle to bear, and she at length was forced to ask him to leave the home. Cross-examined by Lawyer "Archie" Sievwright: You made the somewhat sweeping statement that your husband was always drunk ? — That is quite correct. He never brought any beer home, did he? — I swear before God, I brought gallons of beer home for him night after night. By the way! Were you an actress before you were married? — Oh, no! I used to do a little amateur work as a child, but that is all. His Honor: Who helped him drink all this beer — gallons of it — did you? — No, I had a little stout, occasionally. Counsel (produc- , . ing a faded photograph of a fish and chip shop) : Do you recognize thls?-^-Yes (flushing slightly). "- """ Obtained as an interest from the estate of your husband's mother? — She left it as a debt to be paid off. Who was the owner of the house at Island Bay to which you went from a house at Karori, where tne rent was about 30/- a week? — A Mrs. O'Brien. What was the rent at Island Bay? — Three pounds ten a week. A fairly large sum for the wife of a wharf laborer? — Well, you see, I wanted to take a larger house, so that I could earn more money by taking invalid guests. You must have had a good many invalids therel How many were there? — As many as five at one time. I might want to communicate with the lady who owned the house at Island

Only A Wharfie?

Bay. Is she on the telephone? — Yes, at Hay Street, Oriental Parade. Your husband swears there were only two Invalids. Who were the five you mentioned? — Mr. and Mrs. Williams, Nurse Appleby and Mr. and Mrs. Mowler. Had you a telephone at Island Bay? —Yes. Somewhat extravagant for a woman m debt, isn't it? — Not when I had invalids m the house, when it was sometimes necessary to ring a doctor. When you left there, you took a shop on the parade, and another m Rintoul Street, Newtown, didn't you? Do you still say you are m debt, after starting two businesses? — Yes, £400. As a milliner?- — Correct. Did you ever say to your husband: "Oh, get! I'll be pleased to see the 'house' of you" ? — Nonsense. That: "You are only a common wharfle"? — That is a lie, a wicked lie! (warmly). That: "I don't want to see you any more"?— Oh, Mr. Sievwrlght! That's a dowrirlght wicked lie, a cruel lie! How can you say such things! His Honor: But did you use any of those words? — Oh, no, sir. You didn't use those words, but you were glad to get rid of him?— ■ I was glad, yes, after those years of misery. Lawyer Sievwrlght: You said he was only a common wharfle. I suggest that the reason why you brought these proceedings was because you were climbing the social scale and you didn't want your common husband of a wharfle to be m the house! — It is ridiculous, what you say. It is absurd! (Passionately, clasping her hands con-

DR. "JOE" HENNESSY HAS GONE to Sydney. When the "Maheno" sailed from the Wellington wharf last Friday, it bore a man who had suffered the shafts of unfortunate coincidence, but when the ship reaches its sheltering harbor across the water, it will know a young doctor who seeks the more tolerant fiel.ds of better understanding. (See story on front page.)

iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiimni} vulsively, her cheeks absolutely flaming with emotion). Not only that, but you wouldn't allow him to eat the evening meals with your family and the other people m the house? You told him to get washed and have his meals elsewhere, didn't you? — An absolute lie, Mr. Sievwrlght! I Isn't it a fact that you told your husband that if he allowed the divorce proceedings to go through, you would pay all expenses; that you wanted nothing from him and that you would be friendly with him after the divorce was settled?— Nothing of the sort. It is a wicked lie! Didn't you have a cup of coffee with him a short time ago at a cafe m Molesworth Street ... and when you were about to go you kissed him good-bye? — Yes. Her son, Frederick, a pale youth whose features did not form the combination of a particularly strong face, paralleled his evidence with that tendered by his mother. Doris May Brindle, Newtown milliner, and restless, taut-strung prototype of her mother, occasionally broke out into a veritable torrent of feeling against her father, who, she said, had scarcely ever showed the pleasant side of his nature. "He was always drinking, always quarrelsome — I can never remember anything else but drink. His actions depended upon his condition. If ordinarily drunk, he would argue and quarrel with "everybody. If hopelessly drunk, he would try to fight everybody. "When I was younger" (she is now 23) "he used to frighten me to death— I was terrified of him. ... "In one of his fits of mad drunkenness, he tore off the frock I had been wearing at a dance, from which I had just returned." , Counsel Sievwrlght: Didn't your father object to your going to dances, and didn't he have occasion to remonstrate with you about it? — No, he was never home to talk to me, unless he was drunk. Don't you feel a certain amount of resentment that while you control a milliner's shop m Newtown, and your mother one m Island Bay, your father is merely a common wharf laborer? — It doesn't matter to me what my father Is — I don't owe my present position to him. I started out m this way m order to better myself. Jean Appleby, the nurse who had stayed with the Brindles at Island Bay, testified that on the few occasions

Always Irritable .

when she had seen Brindle, he had been taciturn, morose and extremely irritable. It was a habit of his to disturb all the patients by banging on the doors. Frederick Brindle, a short, plainlydressed, thin-lipped man, who spoke with a decided accent, made a statement incorporating simple denials of the hectic conduct with which he had been imputed by his wife and children. He ridiculed the suggestion of his discharge from the Wholesale Cooperative Stores m Manchester through drunkenness. He had been employed by them for 21 years and had left the workshop solely for the reason that he intended looking after one of the shops opened by his wife. When he first married his wife, he was receiving only thirty shillings each week for wages, out of which he allowed his wife twenty-five; as his earnings increased m subsequent years so did his allowance to her. He refuted the suggestion that his wife had ever wanted for money through any default of his, and, whilst admitting having a beer or two, here and there, he strenuously denied habitual inebriacy. Counsel Seivwright called several independent witnesses to prove that within the last eighteen months, at any rate, he had led an abstemious life. His honor, m dismissing the petition, said the picture drawn by Brindle's wife and family had been a highly-colored one. If the x-espondent had been such a hopeless drunkard as they made him out to be, it was difficult to believe that his wife would go back to him, once she had secured her separation from him. Again, she had supposedly walked the streets, because he acted as though he were mad; if that were true, why had she joined him when he came out to New Zealand? Regarding the family fortunes, his honor said he did not think there was much ground for the assertion that Brindle had failed to provide his wife with the wherewithal of life. Whilst they lived m England, they had evidently enough money to go on week- end jaunts with plenty of beer and stout. No doubt Brindle had been m the habit of drinking, but had he been the hopeless drunkard the family declared him to be, it was scarcely likely that the Wellington Harbor Board would have permitted him to work for them as long as they had. Then, too, there was the evidence tendered by independent witnesses, including a room-mate, who had lived with him during the past two years, and- his landlady, who had sworn that he had not been drunk within the past two years. The suggestion that Brindle had not given his wife more than £60 m two years was highly improbable, deolared the judge, as when he received some £56 from England he handed the whole of it over to his wife, who purchased furniture and a piano worth £126, the latter on time-payment. The petition would be dismissed.