DIVORCE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 88, 30 August 1912, Page 5

DIVORCE.

A PECULIAR ACTION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. An unusual type of divorce case was heard to-day in the Supreme Court. William Cyrus Davie applied for a dissolution of his marriage with Elizabeth Annie Davie, on the ground of desertion. It was stated that the parties wore married at Sheffield, England, in August, 1890. Petitioner was twenty-two, and respondent forty. Respondent had £OOO a year. Petitioner had a farm at Hawarden, New Zealand, and came to New Zealand by himself three months after his marriage, to make a home for his wife. She coming out later, the parties lived together till October, 1808, when it was arranged that the mother should return to England and settle her son of seventeen or eighteen years of age in business. After respondent had been in England for a few months she wrote out that litigation had arisen which had deprived her of a good deal of her mono}-, and she asked her husband to go to England to help her. He was financially unable to do so. In 1000 petitioner asked respondent to come out and live with him in New Zealand, and she refused, saying that it was impossible. Desertion dated from then. Shortly afterwards the son wrote, saying that he had asked his mother to come to New Zealand, and asking if petitioner could give him work on his farm. Petitioner replied, asking his wife to come to New Zealand, but refusing to give the son work. Correspondence then ceased till 1908, when respondent wrote asking for £25, which petitioner forwarded. Counsel for respondent said that Mrs. Davie went to England with her husband's full consent, to transact important businesa She was served with a writ, in connection with chancery proceedings in 1900, and was thus unable to return to New Zealand at that time. Her husband forwarded her an ultimatum in 1900 that she should come back to New Zealand. Therefore, her failure to comply with the request could not be considered desertion.