"AN APPALLING CASE."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 145, 14 November 1914, Page 6

"AN APPALLING CASE."

WOMAN'S TRAGIC STORY. Strong comment on the conduct of a respondent was made by Mr Justice Cooper in the Supreme Court at Auckland on Tuesday, when Maude Maria Louise Williamson asked for a divorce from her husband, James Williamson. Mr Fitzherbert, instructed by Mr J. R. Lundon, said that a defence had been filed, but acting under instructions received that morning, he would ask leavo to withdraw the defence. Leave was granted accordingly, and the case proceeded as an undefended action.

Petitioner, whose evidence was heard j within closed doors, said she was mar- ) ried in 1901 at Waitara. Her husband was seventeen years older than she was, and was a divorced man with a family of five children. She herself, was an only child and became engaged to Williamson against the wishes of bcr parents. She intimated to him that she could not marry him. He then told ber that her father owed her a substantial sum of 1 money, and that be would ruin her j father if she did not consent to become ] his wife. She believed him, and did not; tell nor parents, though subsequently j she found out that the allegation was untrue. Three days later her father committed suicide. Her husband showed no sympathy. He used filthy language to her and treated her abominably. During her married life she had undergono six operations, two within a. period of six months. Her husband had threatened to cut her throat, and mother had not put a stop to his use of abusive and obscene language. The , clothes she wore were obtained from her mother. Her husband gave her no money, because he held it was a bad thing to give money to women—they got too proud, he said. In any case, he knew that if she got money she would leave him. lAt another time he said that a woman was like "a dog, tho worse you treated her, the more shecame back." On one occasion she went with him tq Auckland. He left her ftanding in the street, a stranger and without money, and she had to wait unlit he returned to her. His conduct became such that she feared that remaining with him would drive her to suicide, so on March 29, 190!), she left him. Sinco 1907 she had not received a penny from him.

y His Honor said that respondent by liis conduct in abandoning the defence had admitted the statements that ho was habitually guilty of cruelty towards petitioner. The circumstances of the case were so revolting that but for the fact that respondent had wilfully abandoned his defence, he probably would have required some evidence other than that of the petitioner's mother, "ff the statements made by the petitioner are true," concluded His Honor, "and I must accept them as such, respondent has shown that he has a terrible disregard for the ordinary decencies between man and wife. He had treated her in a brutal manner —in a bestial manner. To my mind the conduct sho has spoken of, the language which ho used to her, and the facts which followed, showed that he was guilty of appalling cruelty to this woman. I havo have had a good deal of experience in divorce cases, but I do not know of any case which shows Buch an abominable disregard of the proper relations which should exist between man and wife. I don't know of such a case as this, when such revolting details have come before mo. He allowed petitioner's mother to contribute largely towards this woman's support and supply all her clothing. His conduct when he re fused to go for a doctor before his child was born, because it would dirty his bicycle, indicates that the respondent was a man who was nothing less than a bestial. Again, under the assumption that all this evidence is true, I think the reason why petitioner left him was the reason she gave—because if she had remained sho would have committeed suicide. It is an appalling case, and by abandoning the defence respondent's conduct has been equivalent to a confession of the allegations stated in the petition." A decree nisi, to be made absolute in three months, was granted, with costs against the respondent on the highest scale, as on a defended action.