DUNEDIN DIVORCE CASE.

Patea Mail, Volume IX, Issue 1065, 27 July 1883, Page 2

DUNEDIN DIVORCE CASE.

The Daily Times gives some particulars of the coming divorce suit, Stewart y Stewart and Dickson, in which petitioner seeks to recover £2OOO damages and the custody of a child said to be the issue of the marriage. Our contemporary says the facts of the case are, we understand, of an unusual and startling character. The parties were married on March 12, 1873, by the Rev A. Robertson, in West Melbourne, the respondent’s maiden name being Lucie Jane Webb, a native of Ireland. Having spent their honeymoon in Melbourne, they went to Sandhurst, where the petitioner was engaged in business. In consequence of a mistake made by a third party, which was subsequently fully explained, the petitioner suffered great vexation and annoyance, and consented to return to Melbourne, where, at her urgent entreaty, he purchased a business for his wife. It was when the respondent conducted this business that the petitioner bad reason to doubt his wife’s fidelity. As, however, he was anxious to avoid scandal, he tried to induce his wife to give up the business and to follow him to New South Wales. He twice returned to Melbourne with this object in view, but was unsuccessful. Then in 1875, only two years after the marriage, Mrs Stewart left the Colony, and he did not hear anything of her for several years. Shortly after their separation, the child which the petitioner claims as his was born. It was registered in another name, but since that time Mrs Stewart has made an affidavit slating that it was the offspring of her marriage with the petitioner. The next information Mr Stewart obtained concerning his wife was that she was in New Zealand, and he received several communications from her. Mr Stewart then went to India, thence to Scotland, and to Ireland, and made provision for his wife at Home. On returning to the Colonies, he again wrote to his wife asking her to join him, so that he might take her Home. In reply he received a letter written at Dunedin, in which Mrs Stewart stated that she was living at Mr Wm Hay Dickson’s as governess to his family. Her letters were of a most affectionate - character ; the deepest gratitude and contrition were expressed, and she wrote in confident terms of their future happiness and the welfare of her child. She did not, however, mention the peculiar fact that her child had been adopted by Mrs Dickson, and that Mr Dickson stood in the position of its legal father. Mrs Dickson was, it is alleged, induced to adopt the child on a representation that Mrs Stewart was Mr Dickson’s married sister. Mr Stewart sent money to his wife to enable her and the child to join him in Sydney, so that they might all go to Europe together. After sending the money he received a telegram from her stating that she would sail next morning by the Wakatipu. He accordingly waited with some impatience for the arrival of that stehmer, but on boarding he learnt that his wife had not gone farther than Wellington, where she had been arrested at the suit of Win. Hay Dickson on a charge of stealing her own child. This information drove him well nigh distracted, and appeared to him past belief, as he was not aware of the existence of such a law as that, which", in this colony, provides for the adoption of children. He immediately altered all the arrangements he bad made. From some newspaper extracts that were forwarded to him from New Zealand, he ascertained that his wife had allowed Mrs Dickson to adopt the child; and then he decided to come at once to the Colony, and to prosecute Mr Dickson for the arrest. On his arrival here,' however, he,was still more astonished to find that his wife was living with Mr Dickson, and that Mrs Dickson had left, under her maiden name, for England taking with her two of her childen, and, leaving the other two with her husband- Subsequently Mr j Dickson and Mrs Stewart went to Melbourne, travelling, it is alleged, as man and wife, and Mr Stewart was a passenger by the same boat, Mr Dickson and Mrs Stewart took with them Mr Dickson’s two children and Mrs Stewart’s child, but returned with only one child, leaving the two girls in Australia. Mr Stewart has been unable since to ascertain where the child he claims as his has t

been left; all that he knows concerning it being that it is somewhere beyond the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of this colony. As we have mentioned, Mrs Stewart was stated by Mr Dickson to be his married sister, and as such she was introduced to many of Mr Dickson’s friends and acquaintances, with some of whom she has been until recently upon visiting terms.