BREACH OF PROMISE. A Very Curious Case. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) London, December 15.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 342, 13 February 1889, Page 4

BREACH OF PROMISE. A Very Curious Case. (FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.) London, December 15.

A curious bicach of promise case was tried ab Liverpool Assizes during the ' oaily part of this week. The plaintiff was a Miss Sarah Anne Bird, a somewhat mature maiden, wlio had suffered in feelings and prospects by the faithlessness of an Irish medico, one Dr. Sam Roberts, erstwhile of Dublin, but now of Port Said. They had, explains the "Daily News" been love-making for sixteen yoara, and when they began it-, in 1072, Miss B rd wa3 but nineteen, and the defendant some five years her senior. The eourl>})i[) had gene on, or gone off, ab intervals dining the whole peiiod, and it had been renewed as lato as the autumn of the present year. In the earlier part of it tho defendant had gouo out to Egypt to seek his fortune as a surgeon, and ho had succeeded in eslablishing a fairly lucrative) prac ieo at times, by his assiduity in boarding .ship?, in tho modest hope that some of tliair passengers might be on tho sick-list. His long absci.ee accounted, in pa 1 1, for tho length of the engagement. Ho was always writing of his prospects, and of Ids intentions, and, both directly and by implication, he had given tho plaintiff to understand that sue was to be his wife. When he came home in September last, she natnially thought that tho long- wished for houis had come, moie especially as on tho occasion of the festivities w h eh welcomed his return he had taken hoi on his knee and given her a Idas. This, however, was speed >ly followed by most unaccountable behaviour. The ial?e one denied his promise, accused the fair one of flirting with other men, and finally turned his back upon her, lea's ing her no resource but to compel him to face her in court. Ileie he repeated his denial of tho piomi*e, and then tiied to hedge by saving that, if a piomiso had been made, it had betn lescinded by mutual agreement. He did not offer a particle- of evidence in support of the latter plea. Moico\ci, ho declared that he was a ruined man. The Egyptian war had played ha\oc with his practice. He had engaged in unfortunate speculations, one of them being an investment in an ice producing company, whose operations, by the way, may have had something to do with the sudden chill in his affections. It was all of no avail perhaps because one witness testified to the plaintiffs confession that he had a snug sum put by in another name, and that the lady would consequently be batlled in her en deavours to get a penny out of him. The jury awarded her £500. The details wore of the usual sort. Is love, asks the "Daily News" plaintively, after all, the silly passion? Fiom the point of \iew of moral dignity it seems icdly les* discreditable that promises should be bioken than that Jo\ois should bo &o exceedingly f ooli&h in their manner of making thorn. Why must these actions always make the Courts so merry ? Could not one conceive a case in which tho coin so of tho passion had been marked by such feeling and taste as not to leave a dry eye in Bench or Bar ? If Ophelia had sued Hamlet, no one would have been obliged to laugh. This unhappy purgeon was too elementary. His verse would hardly have passed muster at the foot of a \alentinc " Whisper softly, sweet, and low ; Wilt thou be mine, lovo— yos or no?" Are wo all like that when the mists of this blinding passion are before our eyes ? It looks like it, for all whom wo pco when our eyes aro opened aro certainly so. " Whisper softly, sweet, and low : Wilt Ihou be mine, lovo — yc3 or no ?*' Poor surgeon, and to pass from that as appaiently they all — perhaps as we all —do to tender inquiries for a Christmas cake, presumably that it might help him to think of her ! But for this di&ti acting passion would a sober surgeon of Poit Said have ever dropped into this prose of poetical quotation, into this poetiy of plum cake? To the snmc cause must bo ascribed certain blemishes in his English which gavo lather too much amusement to the Court. Absurcdly he does not write " nervis " every day, nor talk of this " perticulcr country "nor of these "peculier complaints." Nor is it to be .supposed that, because in wiiting to Miss Biid he said that he was fattening three "guesses" for his dinner on Christmas Day, he was himself " guess" enough to habitually pen the name of the biid in that way, 'Tis loie, 'tia !oie, that makes tho brain go round in its utter lorgetfulness of Lindley Murray's grammar and of Mayor's spelling. For this reason, no doubt, the jury re'jaided a letter to the lady's father, in which the writer spoke of his ' intentions as to mar riago between I and your daughter' as convincing proof of affection. His statement that he hoped to complete certain family arrangements befoie he ' partook of a wife' showed no more than that his ardour had become a devouring passion.