NOVEL DEFENCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 289, 1 August 1932, Page 2

NOVEL DEFENCE

MAN CLAIMS S^PIRITUALISM CAUSED SEPARATION WITH WIFE. PLEA PROVES USELESS. A man named Alfred Wilkins, wh.o was sued at the Police Court at Willesden, Middlesex, recently, for maintenance arrears, and who applied in turn for the previous order to be reduced, said that his life had been ruined by his wife taking up spiritualism. Owing, Wilkins said, to distress of mind caused by the separation, he was able only to earn half his usual income. When his wife took up spiritualism "that was the end of 30 years of happiness." Counsel for the wife: And you desire to pay less than 35s a week to your wife, to whom you wrote last month : "My heart is torn, my brain's afire, Thou are my life, my soui's d.esire." The husband: Yes, we used to sing things like that together in our happy married days. Counsel: Did you ever say your ' wife was mad ? The hushand: I did say that spiritualism had unbalanced her mind, and that is perfectly true, or she would never have left me. Since the troublo started I have often said: "This is never my Mina." The magistrate refused to vary the order and ordersd the husband to pay the arrears, whereupon defendant re • marked: "How terrible that spirtualism should have separated us after 30 years."