HE COULD NOT SETTLE DOWN

NZ Truth, Issue 1237, 15 August 1929, Page 3

HE COULD NOT SETTLE DOWN

+_. War Marriage of Army, Deserter (From "N.Z. Truth's" 'Dunedin 'Rep.) Of unsettled disposition was Reginald Blackwell, - a man who could neither fulfil his obligations •.to his country nor to his girl wife. 1 • Blackwell" married, a girl 0f, 17 and was almost immediately arrested ' for deserting from the army. Upon his release he seldom stayed at, home. IT was an unhappy tale of another 1 blighted \rar marriage that Mr. Justice Kennedy, m the Dunedin Supreme Court,' was called upon to end. The petition ,of Helen Rosa Blackwell did not.leave the issue m doubt. 'In 1917, ißlackwell married his wife m London. He\failed to tell this girl of 17 that he was a deserter from the army, with the result that married life for her staned-disastrously. Her,' husband was sentenced to imprisonment for twelve months two weeks after the marriage, but on the expiry of nine months he was released and brougnt his wife to New Zealand. The parties lived together, for some time", but Mrs. Blackwell found thai; her husband was not the* kind to stay at home. He preferred to leave ' her at night and find his own amusement m his. own way. Constant; disagreements arose over this habit of Blackwell's and m 1925 they decided to separate. , Since then Mrs. Blackwell had lived apart from her husband; A decree nisi was granted with costs on the lowest scale against Blackvvell,"