DIVORCE SUIT IMPLICATING A CHRISTIAN EVANGELIST.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 301, 22 September 1888, Page 3

DIVORCE SUIT IMPLICATING A CHRISTIAN EVANGELIST.

On the Bbh of September, a commercial traveller residing in North Fitaroy, named James William Leigh ton, petitioned for a divorce from his wife, Philena Leighton, formerly Scott, before Mr Justice Kerferd and a jury of 12, at Melbourne, on the ground of her adultery with John Moble Y'ates. Mr Topp appeared for the petitioner, the suit being undefended. Petitioner and respondent were married at Collingwood on the Bth September, 1870, the former, aLonddner, being then2Byeai - sof age, and the respondent, born inNew Brunswick, British North America, 19. Leighton was before marriage a portmanteau-maker, and hits wife a tailoress. Subsaquently the petitioner for a time carried on business as a storekeeper, and afterwards became a traveller. The living issue of their union was seven children. In November last a disagreement arose between them, and the respondent deserted her home, leaving a letter for her husband to state that she intended taking a situation as a companion to a lady on a chip outward bound. Leighton made every inquiry, but could learn nothing of her having left the colony. One of her brothers then told him that he had some months before seen a letter intheco-respondent'shandwritingaddressed to Mrs Leighton in endearing terms, in which he called her Cyrene. Some years previously, while Yates was officiating as minister of the Christian Chapel. Lygonstreet, Carlton, Mr and Mrs Leighton were members of hit congregation. Subsequently Yates conducted religious services in connection with the Church of Christ, in the Temperance Hall, Rae-street, North Fitzroy, and latterly he acted as lecturer for a temperance society. He was compelled to resiyn his connection with the church for some reason not connected with these proceedings, but his engagement as a temperance lecturer was tei-minated when it became known that he had been .served with a notice to defend this suit. He was ! a married man, and his wife died on the 22nd September last. Two months afterwards, as the petitioner subsequently discovered, Yates encaged rooms for Mrs Leighton at a lodg ng-house in Mornington, and there they lived under the name of Mr and Mrs Amar for five months with two of Leighton's children. On the 12th April they took their departure, informing the lodging-house keeper that they weie going to America. Yates in the meantime had taken apartments in another lodginghouse in Frankston, and they resided there for a month. One day they left in a hurry, and an hour afterwards the petitioner, who had continued to track them, arrived upon the scene. Respondent and co-respondent have now both disappeared. Yates appears to have attended to his pastoral duties whilst Mrs Leighton was secluded in her seaside retreat, for with one exception he was always away in Melbourne on Sundays. A drapery bill was found in the wardrobe of the room they had been occupying at Mornington, addressed to Mr& Airar, at Murphy-street, South Yarra, where Yates had been residing iv the early part of November. Mr Topp asked the jury to gi\e substantial damages against the co respondent There was little probability of the petitioner recovering anything from him, but the jury oueht to mark their repiehension of the conduct of a man who, going about in ihe guise of religion, got into people's houses and seduced the female member of hi& flock while partaking of the husband's hospitality. The jury found, in reply to questions, that adultery had been committed between respondent and co-respondent, and acquitted the petitioner of any cruelty, desertion, wilful neglect or misconduct conducing to the adultery, awarding £2,000 damages againet the co respondent. A decree nisi was granted for the dissolution of the marriage.—" Melbourne Age.'