A Curions Dvorce Case.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 314, 7 November 1888, Page 6

A Curions Dvorce Case.

Tin oa.se of ,J. L. W. Uoinhold v. T. A Caidwell, which was heatcl by the Supreme Court of Queensland in its Matrimonial Cau^e-* Jurisdiction, presented several i eat u res. ipiitc uncommon in divorce action-.. Tbe petitioner (as we learn from the Brisbane ' Courier ') and rebpondent were married in December, 1882, in Brit-bane, and lived very happily together for eiuht months. One morning Card well left home as usual to go to his work, but he never returned, nor gave the woman whom he had so heartlessly deserted the "lightest indication of his whereabouts. Later on, the petitioners learned that a woman signing herselt the wite ot T. A. Cardwell was inquiring about her hubband Huoogh the post oih'ce. This led to i he opening up of corre-pondence between the two women, when they mutually discovered that (he> had been cruelly victimised by one and the same man. But t.'ie evidence thus? obtained would not have been sullicient to leaallv prove the bigamy and enable the petitioner to have her mock marriage annulled. It was nece.spaiy to eatusiy the Judge Ordinary that it should be distinct I}'1 }' pro\en that the woman now m England was actually mairied to the man who had later on gone thiough thu mari iage ceiemony with the pebitionei in Brisbane, and the foimer uas alive al the time ot the bigamous maruagc. All the evidence that could be procured when on Friday last the case came before the Court 'did not prove thid beyond doubt, and the lawyers engaged were nonphiosed. Mere again fortuitous circumstances intervened on behalf of the muchwronged petitioner. A man who had lived in the same town as the respondent and lih wife Fanny Cardwell saw the lepoit of the hist bigamy in the papers, and at once volunteered to give evidence for the petitioner. Even this evidence would have been insufficient, biiu he brought to court with him a female relative who had recently come to the colony, and who could swear that she had seen Mr Cardwell alive in 1876 This testimony, taken together with lull evidence as to the identity of the lespondent, cleaily convinced the Court, and the decree nisi declaring the petitioner's marriage to be null and void accordingly issued,