SPYING ON A WIFE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXII, Issue 8862, 12 July 1907, Page 1

SPYING ON A WIFE.

Police-Commissioner Bingham is investigating an effort by Mr Howard Gould to use detectives and police to obtain evidence on which to bring a suit for divorce against his wife, formerly Miss Katherine Clemmons, an actress. Buffalo Bill, the “Wild West” showman, says that the city’s detectives offered him £3OOO, and then £SOOO, to make statements prejudicial to Mrs Gould. He adds that he indignantly scorned the insulting bribe. Mr Gould’s lawyers assert that they asked the personal aid of Police-Inspector McLaughlin, recently degraded to the rank of captain, as a favour to them, and did not solicit the employment of other members of the police force. Commissioner Bingham refuses to say what he will do until ho completes an investigation on which he has eight detectives at work. He contents himself with saying thai ho expects to “discipline the guilty.” The Evening Journal publishes a satirical editorial recalling the employment of ‘ ‘ Big Bill Hawley, ’ ’ a notorious criminal, to obtain evidence against Mrs Gould, saying that the hiring of private detectives, though shedding light on modern society, is Mr Gould’s business, but the use of the police department is the public’s business. On behalf of the public we should like to tell Mr Gould politely that it is desirable for him to carry on his secret investigations and hire people to spy on his wife with money out of his own pocket. Mr Gould may not know it, but his lawyer can tell him, that it is a crime punishable with a year’s imprisonment, or fine, or both, to use private money in bribing policemen to attend to private business.