PATHETIC BIGAMY STORY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 97, 10 September 1912, Page 7

PATHETIC BIGAMY STORY.

An extraordinary story was related at the Glasgow Sheriff's Court on July 17, when an attractive-looking woman, named Mary Mathieson Maekay, or Munro, pleaded guilty to a charge of bigamy. Her legal representative stated that the accused woman was 23 years old, and when only Hi had married' a widower in a northern town. She was then an orphan, and her husband, who was 23 years her senior, declared to her that he married her to get his deceased- wife's sister out of the house. The marriage was not a happy one, and the couple lived together only five months. On one occasion (her birthday) she wag not quick enough in fetching his slippers, and he blackened both her eyes, and in order that the neighbors might not see what he had done, said-counsel, he had the llesh painted. Be continued to ill-treat her. and she ultimately left him and came to (Masgow, where she entered the service of a university professor. She knew nobody in the city, but some people who came from her native village advised her to return to the Highlands and ask her husband what he was going to do for her, and she took their advice, and proceeded to the Xorth. ,She there found her husband ill lodgings, and eventually discovered him fishing in the Spey with one of his workmen. i!e upbraided her for exposing him to his landlady, and caught, and threw her into the Spey. She climbed out of the water, and while she was in a dripping condition the ihusband (continued counsel) caught hold of her hand and tore oil' the wedding ring and engagement ring, anil left her. The girl was obliged to walk over a. moor to a railway station, where she took a train for Glasgow. It was in the city that she met the second man five years ago. He courted her for three years, and she did not like to tell him the circumstances of her marriage. She thought she was free to marry, her husband having declared that if she went away he would divorce her and marry a'"ain. Eventually she went through the marAn action for divorce had actually been An action for divorce had nctualv been raised by the husband in the Court of Session. Sheriff Fyfe: Wlio laid the information regarding the charge of bigamy?— The husband, who came to (Masgow "with a lawyer to get evidence for the divorce. The Sheriff, addressing the respondent, said he supposed the mail whom she unfortunately married had laid the information upon the idea that he would get her punished, lie had accomplished hi« object undoubtedly by her having to be brought there,, and by her sad story being referred to in a public court. His Lordship sympathised with her most deeply, and dismissed her with an admonition.