BOUCICAVLT'S APPEAL. Dismissed in London, With Costs

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 241, 11 February 1888, Page 8 (Supplement)

BOUCICAVLT'S APPEAL. Dismissed in London, With Costs-

London, January 11. — Lords Justice Cotton and Bowen, sitting in the Appeal Court, heard today the appeal of Dion Boucicault from tho decision of Sir James Hnnnen, President of the Divorce Court, postponing for six months the hearing of the petition for divorce presented by Mrs Boucicauit, now acting in America. Inderwick, Queen's Counsel, on behalf of Boucicault, said that in May, 1886, Mrs Boucicault commenced proceedings on the ground of alleged bigamy and adultery, but the real question for the Court to decide upon the hearing of the petition is to the validity of the marriage. It had not been suggested that there was any civil or religious ceremony between them, but the contention was that living together in New York, according to the American law, constituted a marriage. In 1880, Mrs Boucicault commenced proceedings, which were afterward discontinued in the American courts for divorce, and subsequently presented a petition to, the English' court. Boucicault, who had married a lady in Now South Wales, contended that the alleged marriage with the petitioner was not valid. Commissioners had been sent to America to take evidence, and when the case was ready for trial last December, the President, on the application of Mrs Boucicault, granted tho adjournment for six months to enable her to fill a theatrical engagement in America worth £100 a week. This was a hardship to Boucicault. He was once rich, and is now poor, and he alleged that his wife used the pending divorce as a theatrical advertisement by defaming him to newspaper reporters. Their lordships decided, without hearing Mrs Boucicault's counsel, that the postponement was a matter of discretion with the President, and dismissed the appeal with costa.