SENSATIONAL DIVORCE CASE.

Patea Mail, Volume VIII, Issue 1036, 18 May 1883, Page 2

SENSATIONAL DIVORCE CASE.

The developments in a suit for diroro* are causing a sensation at St. Louis (U.S.) just now. The plaintiff is William Waddingham, and the defendant his wife Pauline. Mr Waddingharn has been a resident of St. Louis all his - life, and is the possessor of great wealth, being reputed to be worth 300,000 to 400,000d01. He met his wife for the first time'in St. Louis about thirty years ago. She was then known as Pauline Hulett. They were married on August 30, 1853. A short time ago he, accidentally discovered that at the time he married her she had another husband—one Charles R. Gavin—still living, and it was upon this ground that he brought suit for divorce. In 1843, Gavin, who was then a young man of about twenty, and Pauline Hulett, aged then about sixteen, lived together as man and wife. Shortly after this period Gavin wandered eastward, and, being Caught in an Act of grand larceny, was sent to the Auburn Penitentiary for three years. While he was in prison his wife went to the bad, and he became a sort of wanderer, serving shortly thereafter a term in the Columbus (Ohio) Penitentiary for counterfeiting. For the past few years his family and acquaintances have entirely lost sight of him, and his mother, r \ylio had not seen him for thirty years, supposed him dead. In response to these damaging charges Mrs Waddingharn enters » general denial. She alleges, in her answer, that she was never married to Charles 11. Gavin, but that a cousin of hers, who greatly resembled her, named Martha Jane Haskins, was the one who married Gavin. Mr Waddingharn was kept busy for several, months, endeavouring to discover the whereabout of Charles R. Gavin. Monday was the day set for the hearing of further depositions on behalf of the plaintiff, and the defendant had been duly notified to bo on band at the office of Waddingharn’a attorneys. The purpose of Mr Waddingharn was to Surprise the Defence by the production of Gavin. The plaintiff and his attorneys, with Gavin, were on band before ten o’clock. At that hour the defendant entered with her and here a scene intensely dramatic in its details ensued. Mrs Waddington, who is a well-preserved woman, seemingly about forty-five years of age, though older, and of small and shapely figure, came into the room with a smile on her face, and entirely unconscious of the trap that had been laid for her. Gavin was standing against the wall, and facing the door. When the woman, who is said to have been bis wife thirty years ago, but whom he had not seen for over a quarter of a century, entered the doorway, he looked her directly in the face, but gave no sign of recognition. She gazed at him for a moment as if she had suddenly been confronted by an apparition, throwing her hands into the air, and staggering towards a corner of the room, calling out in frantic tones “ Charles ! Charles! Charles! Charles !" and then fell on the carpet in a hysterical fit. Water was dashed in her face, and after being revived she looked wildly around and said, in scarcely audible tones, I Thowghthe tvas Dead Gavin stood there all the time with hji ß hands behind his back, staring at his wife? but not saying a word. His stolid face betrayed no emotion whatever, and he looked on with the indifferent air of a spectator w ho had no concern in what was transpiring. When the lady was led away he coolly remarked “That’slier.” He was then put on the stand, and his deposition proceeded. The most sensational as well as melancholy episode of that extraordinary domestic drama is yet to be told. It was the intention of plaintiff’s attorney

to place the defendant on the stand and try to obtain her admission, under oath, that she was lawfully wedded to Charles R. Gavin, and had never been divorced from him ; but it was discovered that she had left the city on Monday night, and there was left no further doubt on the question of the previous rnarnage. Mr Nichols left for Detroit on Tuesday to procure additional testimony, if not the actual record. He took Gavin with.him, and it was a part of their trip there to have him identified as the Charles R. Gavin who lived therein 1845. Gavin’s mother, Mrs Mary Marsh—she having been married a second time—an old lady of eighty-four, has been living in Detroit for fifty years, her recent home being at 101 Catherine street. When tlietwo callers tapped at the door it was opened by a girl, who conducted them to a room where the old lady was seated. She rose to receive them, but the same moment recognised her lost son, and screaming out his name, fell dead.—N.Y. Herald.