ANCIENT BRIDEGROOM

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 162, 29 September 1927, Page 13

ANCIENT BRIDEGROOM

DRAGGED INTO MARRIAGE A man of 76, who declared that he was dragged into marriage, then deserted the same day by his bride, appeared before the Marylebone magistrate. .With the aid of stick he tottered into court to answer a summons by his wife for desertion. The husband, Alfred Stokes, gave his address at Stanhope Buildings, Kuston Road, and the wife, a robust-looking woman, said she lived in Victoria Road, Kentish Town. Asked if the old man was her husband, she replied, ”It is/' “He is a bit older than you,” suggested the magistrate. “Oh, he’s years older than me—old enough to be my father,” was the reply. “He bolted me out, and I had to go to Albany Street police station.” Vigilance Society The magistrate asked why she married the old man. Mrs. Stokes replied that he could not read or write, and he was quite an vnvalid. As she was not in very good health, she thought that while she was looking after him she could also look after herself. Then, she said, he destroyed her property because she “chastised” him about his condition. Asked to give an account of this “matrimonial adventure,” Stokes declared that he had been dragged into the marriage. He came into contact with a vigilance society, through its giving lectures at street corners, running down the police and the magistrates, and so forth. The official speaker was, it appeared, a policeman himself. “Just the Woman” He became a member of the society, and one day “they” dragged him into the society’s office, and, on ascertaining that he wanted a tailoress to help him in his business, an official said he had just the woman for him. He was then introduced to his future wife, and at the end of the interview she proposed marriage. She afterwards took him to a place in Holbom for a ceremony, and described herself as a widow, and gave her age as 56. She confessed later that she was a spinster, and that her age was 46, and when asked why she said she was a widow she said she married in Germany, and that didn’t count. (Laughter.) She did not live with him, but went to his home and took away the key, after punching him in the eye. The magistrate said he could not hold that there had been desertion, and dismissed the summons.