STRANGE REASONS FOR DIVORCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 264, 17 March 1911, Page 6

STRANGE REASONS FOR DIVORCE.

THE HOBBLE SKIRT. | But for a hobble skirt a German lady would still be a happy wife. A short while since a husband, when 'applying in 1 the German courts for a divorce, stated that his wife, in order to wear the latest fashions in skirts, had, by wasting over two stone in three months, ruined her temper, and that no protest on his part could divert her from her course. On the ground that the woman's mental and | physical deterioration had .been brought I about by deliberate disobedience, the judge granted the applicant his request. I A wealthy widow who had married a nobleman of distinguished but impoverished family was so horrified at discovering'that ho wore, a wig that sue applied in the Berlin Courts for a separation. She described to the magistrate the horror with which her husband's bald head had inspired her, and averred that she would never have marrjed him Dad she known is hair to be. false. She was successful in, her application. " An army reserve officer in the Trench I service sought release from his matrimonial ties, advancing as a reason ;that his wife was an advocate of women's , rights, and had attempted to persuade other ladies not to submit to their hu's- | band's orders. The magistrate eonsider- | ed that the 1 applicant had■.,not .shown sufficient good cnuse, but, on Ihe'laUer's further remarking that Mine. Duval was in the habit of ridiculing the Trench Army and calling him a coward, at oflce -reversed his judgment. Last July Mrs.| Blickeudorf. applied to, the Official Referee, of "New York, Now Jersey, U.S.A., for a divorce by resiioii of her husband's silence. Ever since their marriage four years previously he had .never uttered u word. . "In summer,", she said, "he sits in the yard all AiVJ and long, into the night, as silent jis'ii 1 wooden figure; and in winter lie keens close to the stove, and burns 'the wood' and coal I carry in, but npver says a word. Previous to.marriage my husband talked fluently, but. was never what you' would call a born'talker." '* ' ■''She explained how she'had tried to make her husband talk, at first by chuck-, ing him under the chin, then by burning his soup and putting salt iir.his coffee, and finally, when these devices failed, inputting timtacksori his chair." : ' Never had she been able to'elicit more thaii anod or shake of the head. Her statements were,vouched for by several witnesses, who averred that "he was 'the most careful'man in the world with his talk." Tinally the Referee granted the application. Persecution by phonograph wis , the reason advanced by Mrs. Hollum, of .Newark, IJ.S.A., for demanding a divorce. Her husband, she -aid, after having spoken an impassioned address ta a voting lady into a phonograph, was, wont to place the instrument each night outside her door. Her husband ynd the lady ■concerned denied this statement, but Mrs. Hollum, having managed to procure both the phonograph and its record, which she produced in Court, through their evidence gained the day. " PECULIAR LEGACIES. Some of the legacies left by Lady Mieux—an actress ,who married a, millionaire trader—have peculiar conditions attached to them. There is tIIOOO to Lord George Cholmondeley, "on condition that he marries a lady in society." Lady Mieux leaves to the local authorities at Waltham Cross the Imperial Unionist Club and buildings employed therewith, on' condition that they are used only for spreading the principle of tariff reform among the inhabitants of Waltham Cross, but "not for Radicals on any pretence whatever." Jt is a fur-1 ther condition that the club shall use only Mieux's malt liquors so lorig : as Mieux's Brewery Company; Ltd., shall! exist. A clause in the will explaius whj" I the testator has left but little provision I for the members of her husband's family. I Stye considers that she was not properly received by them, and that they omitted to show a proper sense of gratitude for the benefits conferred upon them in her lifetime. ,