BEHIND THE SCENES IN BIGAMY CASES.

Shannon News, 30 January 1925, Page 4

BEHIND THE SCENES IN BIGAMY CASES.

SHIP’S COOK MARRIED TO A DIPSOMANIAC. WOMAN’S RUDE AWAKENING. A DREAM OF NEW FOUND HAPPINESS. PROFESSIONAL WOOERS. All Rights Reserved. (By Vincent Wray.) Some years ago I was asked to write a series o£ articles on “Be. ah'.A the Scenes in Bigamy Cases.’’ Accordingly 1 collected a great deal of material! but other commissions prevented me from utilising the result of my labours although from time to time I added to the list of cases which came under my observation. And now I am reminded of this by a strange and painful case which has just been heard at the Central Criminal Court. The person accused of “unlawfully marrying whilst his wife was alive” was a ship’s cook, named Alfred Edward Parnell. He is a man with an excellent character alike for general conduct and unflagging industry. During the War he served on a mine-sweeper, and had many narrow escapes from death. Once he was blown into the sea, and swam about for a full hour before he was rescued. His matrimonial careeiv was for some time a happy one. The couple had six children, of whom the father fond and proud. Parnell saw to it that they wanted none of the necessities, of life, and strictly sober and careful, he managed to put a little money aside for the “rainy day.” The nature of his occupation made it essential that he should be often away from home for days and weeks on stretch, and left to herself, the woman sought consolation in ‘-drink. For a while she managed to conceal this from her husband, but, on one eventful evening, he returned home unexpectedly, to find his wife in t( a drunken stupor.

He did not upbraid her, but pleaded with her to leave alcohol alone, and she readily promised reformation. Alas, the drink had too Arm a hold on her, and she sank deeper and deeper into the mire, till she became a hopeless inebriate! Eventually she became mentally deranged, and was put away in an asylum. But before that the husband could bear it no longer, and taking the children, he left his wife who had blighted his life, and wrecked his home.

Then Parnell struggled on as best he might, though all joy had passed away from him, and he had lost, the home comforts he had valued during the time he was ashore. He was leading a perfectly respectable life, working hard, and providing for his dependenta. The woman —a wife who V?hs no wife —had forgotten, her longsuffering husband, and fell deeper and deeper into dissipation. So passed six years. And then Parnell met another woman, who would make an excellent mother for his children, who .was sober and selfrespecting,and who became deeply attached to him. He told her that he I was a widower, and she agreed td [ marry him. The ceremony took i place. They started a new home, and I the man seemed 4 destined to regain ! something of the happiness that had apparently flown away for ever. Two years afterwards a staggeringblow fell. The wife whom he believed he would never see again, suddenly reappeared. She was insolent in tier demands, threatening in her demeanour. ‘‘That woman is not your wife,” she exclaimed, ‘‘and you are a bigamist. What are you going to do?" The woman Mrs Parnell referred to, was broken by the revelation so bluntly and dramatically made. But she was fond of the man she had believed to be her lawfully-married husband, and whilst she told him that she must go, and their romance end, she informed Parnell that in no circumstances would she give evidence against him. Of course, the man, honest in intention, was considerably worried, and finally as the only way out, went to a police station and after telling his story, waß arrested and charged with bigamy. He looked quite out of place in the dock at the Old Bailey. His face bore the hall-mark of honesty, and his blue eyes were clear, though in the witness-box his voice trembled through the emotion, that shook his sturdy frame. He told his tale without dramatic effect. But his manner and his narrative impressed favourably all who listened to it. They certainly influenced the Recorder, who, after the man had been" found guilty of the'offence —and this was the only possible verdict —said: “In law you were not, as you had claimed to be, a widower, because our harsh law does not allow divorce for drunkenness or anything of that sort.. You married the other woman, and that was your crime. She has gone away, because she does not wish to give evidence against you. She has no stone to cast at you. Neither have I. . . In my view this is as technical a bigamy as a bigamy can be.”

Sir Ernest Wild, one of the most human judges that’ ever presided over a Court of Justice, finished by passing a sentence of one day’s imprisonment, which meant the prisoner’s instant discharge. Not long since there was another case, full of poignant anguish in which a woman was accused of marrying whilst her husband was still alive. A barrister of my acquaintance told me that he was defending, and that his client’s life had been a hell on earth. He suggested that I should attend the Court, and have a chat with her, if, as he hoped, she won freej She was liberated after a nominal sentence, and, with tears streaming down her eheeks, gave me in brief the history of her life. I can visualise

the scene as she talked. The large hall outside the Courts had emptied, and we sat alone. She was dressed in black, and her pale face was crisscrossed with lines imprinted by the relentless hand of a cruel Fate.

She was the daughter of a Hull tradesman, and had received an excellent education. She was musical, and passionately fond of the violin. It was this “craze” that led her into communication with a music teacher whom she eventually married, against the counsel of her 1 parents. Immediately after the marriage her husband left the city, taking his young and accomplished wife with him. It was not long before the man showed himself “in his true colours.” He made her his drudge and his slave, drank heavily, refused to supply her with money, and finally suggested that she should make it in a certain way. The bare suggestion made her heartsick, and she left him. “I did not want to go home” she said, “I know they would have taken me back. But that would have been an indignity I was unable to accept. I sought work, and found employment In a teashop. They were hard times, I had to rise early, and to remain on my. feet from morning till night. Mq husband did not seem to take any trouble to discover what had happened to me. Later 1 heard that he had joined some company, aud has gone away to South Africa.

“As you will imagine, I had little pleasure in life, and felt that I was doomed to suffer till the end of my days. One day it appeared as though the clouds bad broken. One of the customers at our shop took an interest in me, and asked me to accompany him to a theatre. I agreed, though I suppose I ought to have refused. After that I met him many times, and at last he proposed marriage.

"lie was not a wealthy man, but he was kind and courteous, and liad a great respect and esteem for women 1 ought to have explained the circumstances In which I was placed, but that would have meant the clos. ing of my dream of love and happiness. 1 could not bring myself to do it. We were married, at a registry office, and I soon forgot my misery under the influence of his great love. Months passed, and then one afternoon, whilst I was in the Strand, I came face to face with my husband. He stopped me, and wanted to know where I was, and what I was doing. It was not not long before I was at his mercy. And he held on to me with a grip of steel. I had to supply him with money as the price of his silence. At last the exactions of the rufiian became so many and so large that I could endure it no longer.

“t wrote a full confession, and left it in a sealed envelope for my ‘husband’ to read. At the close I appeal, ed for his forgiveness for the wrong that I had done him. Then I gave myself up to the police. ‘My ‘husband’ was in an agony of grief. He insisted on supplying means for my defence and told me that when everything was over, he would see that I did not starve That is the simple story. You may think that I am more sinned against than sinning, or you may condemn me because I sought a little happiness, and broke one of our coun 7 try’s laws. As for my real husband, 1 do not want to see him again.’'

There are many cases of this description, and the man or woman who has not some feeling of sorrow or o£ sympathy for the sinner 'must indeed be hard of heart and seared in soul But there are other cases which . conic under quite a different category. Recently, a. scoundrel charged with bigamy, and sentenced to a term or imprisonment, married a French girl, who was in danger of deportation, so that she might claim that she . was “British by marriage.’’ The police found that he had received a sum of < £5 for going through the ceremony, and that he was already the “hus. band” of other aliens. He was prosecuted for bigamy, and did not re'ceive a nominal sentence. His latest “wife” was soon afterwards convicted and sent out of the country as an undesirable. I know of more than a score of cases in which men have, committed bigamy so that they might “sponge” on their most recent matrimonial alliance. The man who was convicted some time ago at Bristol, and was known as the "lightning bigamist,” set a fashion that was followed by rascals as unscrupulous as he. The latest of this set of rogues actually made love to a lady he met in Cardiff. He "married” her, ana it was not until she has lost every, penny she possessed that she found that she was not even a wife in name i I could multiply instances of human weakennesses and frailty; of human wickedness and cruelty; and I could tell of two Enoch Ardens who have come home unexpectedly, and unwilling to break the spell of a new ana happy union, have faded away again into the human maelstrom. I

TO CHECK INFANTILE PARALYSIS. Daily drop into the child’s nostrils hulf-a-teaspooriful of Fluenzol diluted with warm water. Also rub Q-tol into the nape of the neck. This checks growth of thq malignant organism.