“BIT OF A TIFF”

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 980, 24 May 1930, Page 27

“BIT OF A TIFF”

LEFT HIM ON WEDDING NIGHT MURDERER’S BIGAMY A man sentenced to death at York, in 1905, for wilful murder, and who was reprieved, and after ten years' Imprisonment liberated for having saved the life of .a warder, was convicted at Leeds Assizes of bigamy committed 11 years ago. He was sentenced to three days’ imprisonment, which meant his immediate discharge. The man was James Thomas Carlill, 50, a ship’s steward, of Hull, of whom a remarkable story was told. In 1901, it was stated, he married at Hull his first wife, -who walked out of the house on the wedding night, and whom he had not seen since until a recent Saturday. After his liberation from prison in 1915 Carlill underwent two surgical operations to make himself fit for naval service, and he served with distinction on an armed trawler engaged in minesweeping until 191 S, when his ship was blown up by a torpedo from an enemy submarine. He did not recover consciousness until he found himself in the naval hospital at Chatham, from which he was invalided suffering from dementia and loss of memory, and with an excellent character. A year later he answered the advertisement of a Hull widow, Elizabeth Moss, and married her, describing hims ?lf as a bachelor. His Past Life Mrs. Moss, now living in Hull, said that Carlill told her that he was a bachelor, and never spoke of his past life till after their marriage. He then took her to the free library and showed her the newspaper reports of his trial and sentence for murder. Charles Rankin, probation officer at Hull, said that in 1918 he saw Carlill after his discharge from hospital, and told him that his wife had made application to the court to presume his death, as his ship had been torpedoed, but that the application had been refused. Carlill only laughed. Thought Wife Dead Carlill, in the witness-box, said that his memory was not so good as Mr. Rankin’s owing to his head injuries, and that he could not recall the conversation spoken of. He thought his wife must be dead, as he had not seen her from the day of their marriage 29 years ago. Describing how they parted, he said: “After the wedding we had a bit of a party, with a lot of cheap port wine. There was a hit of a tiff with the company, and she walked toward the door; and I -"said to her, ‘Don’t he a fool,’ but she went out, and I have never seen her since.” Carlill added that since his liberation from prison he had done all he could to obliterate the past. He told Mrs. Moss the whole of the circumstances before marriage, and she replied, “Well, we will take equal risk.”