A Matrimonial Muddle.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVI, Issue 203, 31 August 1904, Page 4

A Matrimonial Muddle.

ENGLISH AND COLONIAL LAW. The question of Hie validity of un Australian divorce came up hi u somewhat romantic nullity .suit lii-md by Sir Francis .k-mie. The petitioner in the case was Miss Muriel Baker, a lady with wealthy connections belonging t 0 a well-known Eastern county family, and the respondent Frederick Gibbs, sou of Arehdeucim Gibbs, of St. Kilts. The younger I Gibbs has had a chequered career. At thirteen years of age he became a cadet in the navy, but after a year at .wa deserted his ship at Capetown. From this time (1870) he liecame "a wanderer on tine face of the earth," and visited well-nigh every country. In 1885, however, he found himself' in Australia, and in Sydney, twelve months later, wedded a Miss Emily Cooper. They lived for a . while at Newcastle, and then commenced to travel round the Continent, spending a few months here and a few there. In 1892 Oibbs told his wife he was going to England, but when next she heard of him lie was running, a school at Antolagasta, in Chili. He invited her-to join him there, and the laldy went, only to find her, husband had skipped to England, leaving word for her to come to him. Mrs (ii-bbs, however, declined to play "follow the leader" any more, and relumed to Australia, where, in 1890, she applied to the New South Wales Court to grant her a decree nisi. This she obtained m June, 1898. Meanwhile Gibbs lived in England, but in 1898 thought it advisable to go to Australia again. He then discovered what his wife had done, but made no attempt to prevent the decree being t made absolute, which was done in 'January, 1899. In the same year Gibbs volunteered for service in

South Africa, and two years later came to England as one of the many interesting war invalids in khaki. At salubrious Harrowgute he met Miss Baker, who fell in love with him as the son of Archdeacon Gibbs and a poor, lone widower with three children. Her mother smiled on Gibbs' suit, and presently, in October, 1901, he persuaded Miss Baker to marry him secretly at a registry office. A few days later he told bis bride the j truth about his first wife. Sho was not lying in Mait'land cemetery as hehad said ; divorce, not death, had severed the tie. Having so early discovered that Gibbs was an, untrutb- ! ful person, Miss Baker was not perhaps greatly surprised when, shortly afterwards, he developed other ob- : jectionable characteristics!. He tried j to persuade her to make him trustee jof her marriage settlements ( a public celebration of their nuptials had ] been decided upon), and when she rei t'ust-d Gibbs fiave such un edifying , display of passion and language that she ran away from him and refused to consort witl'.i him any longer. | Correspondence between them resulted in Miss- Baker learning some jof the facts, of Gibbs'career, and in j due course she entered a su 't of nullity, based on the contention that the Harrow-gate marriage could not be legal since the Sydney divorce was not valid by reason of the fact that the New South Wales Court had no jurisdiction, G-ibba' domicile—if anywhere in Australia—being in Victoria, and that there had been no real desertion when the decree was granted. Sir Francis Jeune upheld the plaintin".- contention that the Sydney Court had no jurisdiction, and pro- ; nounced Miss Baker's marriage null ! and void.

So in the eyes of the English law the first Mrs Gibbsis still Mrs Gibbs, whereas in the eyes of Australians Miss Baker is Mrs Gibbs. It is not often' a man can boast of having two legal wives and at the same time be legally irresponsible for or to either of them. The position of all three parties concerned is indeed peculiar, and the case suggests that it ought not to IV possible j for a divorce court in one part of the British Empire to over-ride a decree granted in another, especially on a l/,nere question of domicile.