MAN THE MASTER.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 54, 28 October 1912, Page 2

MAN THE MASTER.

HIS RIGHT TO SELL HIS WIFE. Remarkable evidence was given at the Redford Police Court on September 3, when Rebecca Millard applied for an order under the Summary Jurisdiction Married Women Act against her husband, Henry Millard, a silver plater, of Bower Street, Bedford. The complainant alleged that her husband had been guilty of persistent cruelty. In reply to the defendant, Mr Millard admitted that ten years ago she went away with another man. Her husband, she alleged sold her for a shilling, and put her in the train to go with the man 300 miles for her holidays. At that time she had been living in Cheapside, London. She took £IOO with her and when her husband found her at Birmingham she gave him £SO and kept her £SO. She had been away with the man for two and a-half years, and the defendant begged her to return to him. She returned to her husband, but had left him several times since, because she was afraid of him. She obtained a situation as a cook at Nottingham, but again returned to the defendant. The complainant stated that she lived happily while with the other man for two and a-half years; but her husband pleaded and she returned to him, and had never seen the other young man since. The defendant called his mother to give evidence, and she stated that she lived at Chelsea before her daughter-in-law was sold for a shilling. She had been going with the young man. The Bench refused to make an order. In Hungary it seems, wives are still bought and sold. The other day a house painter, sold his lawfully wedded wife to his comrade, for 500 crowns (£2l). After the contract for sale and purchase had been duly signed, the three signatory parties adjourn-

ed to a restaurant, where they enjoyed a festival repast, the cost of which amounted to more than half the selling price of the wife. After the feast the woman went off to the home of her new husband.