WOMAN'S WORLD
JILTED GIRL'GIVEN £2OO . STRONG COMMENT ON OFFICER'S CONDUCT. "If only we could settle down in a nice little liome of our own I would not change places with the Kin®." Such was a passage in a letter written by Lieutenant George Bage, sth Battalion, King's Own Yorkshire Light Infantry, to Miss Kate Truemnn, an orphan of twenty, who lives with her grandmother at Harrogate, and who was employed as a postal clerk. He has now been sued by her for breach of promise in the Under-Sheriffi' Court at Leeds. He did not appear, nor was he represented, and the jury assessed damages against him at. £2OO. It was s.tated that Lietuenant Bage, whose home is at Durban, became acquainted with Miss Truenian in 1915, before he became an officer. In 1917 they became engaged. They visited each other's homes, and most affectionate letters pasted between them.
Under promise of marriage, said counsel for Miss Trucman, intimacy took plr.ee, and a child was born last February.
In giving evidence, Miss Trueman ?,uid the lieutenant was a grocer's assistant before he joined the Army. With the jury's award, the TJnderSherilf said Bage had behaved like o cowardly cur. "A FRIEND OF MINE—" WIDOW'S SUTTOR CONFRONTED BY HIS WIFE. A trap set by a widow for a canvasyer, who made love to her and pretended that he was coming into a fortune of £93,000, was described at Wimbledon Police Court. The suitor, William H. Castell, 34, was charged with obtaining £3 from Mrs. Caroline Brown, and £4 from Mrs. Sarah Ann Barker, both widows, by false pretences.
Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Barker stated that Castcll called for orders for photographic enlargements. He told them lie was a widower, having lost his wife and child in an air raid in Southend, and offered them marriage. When s/peaking about coming into a fortune of £93,000 he took a letter from a wallet and said, "That is a letter from our solicitor," but he did not divulge the contents. The accused obtained the money from the women to help him to patent a varnish or polish. Making inquiries Mrs. Brown found out that he was a married man, and arranged for his wife to be at her hous.e one night when he called. She then confronted him with his wife, saying "Let me introduce von!"
Two previous convictions for theft and fraud having been proved, the prisoner was sentenced to three months' imprisonment for each offence, the sentences. 1 to ran concurrently. ROSIN A BUCKMAN. The opera season at Dnirv Lane, (writes the Star's London correspondent) was a triumph for Miss Rosina Buckman, the New Zealand prima donna. It was, both mus.ically and socially, an event of no small importance. It marked in a sense the beginning of the official or semi-official gaieties of the Victory season. No more brilliant audience has been seen for many years—pre-war years; included—at this time of the year iii London. In a Royal box, draped in red velvet, was the Queen of Rumania, with her daughter, Princess Marie, and Lady Cunard. Princess Helena Victoria was in another box on the same tier, and there were many well known people, many brilliant dresses, and many pearls and diamond;: in the boxes and stalls. The house was quite full. In honor of the Royal visitors;, the Rumanian National Anthem was played before the performance began with' Ethel Smyth's "Boatswain's Mate," which is becoming a popular favorite. The performance was probably the best heard yet in London. Mif.s Rosina Buckman was in excellent voice, and acted with real comic force, while Mr. Ranalow and Mr. Alfred Heather—also in their old parts—acted well individually. Sir Thomas Beecham had the orchestra well in hand, and it played even better in "Lo Ooq d'Or." The fantastic spirit was excellently caught on both sides of the footlights. There way tremendous enthusiasm throughout the evening. Saturday night's revival of "Aida" was again a triumph for Miss Buckman. She was recalled time after time at the end of "Ritoma Vincitor," in xyhieh her singing could stand comparison with the many great foreign Aidas whom London had heard. It was | probably the best performance of the old master's! magnificently melodious work that English singers have ever given. And this in spite of the indisposition of the tenor, Mr. Frank Mullings. He, [however, managed his voice with supreme art, and, saving it for the grand mus.ic of the Nile scene in Act 111., did not fail to bring down the house.
A RISQUE POSTCARD. CAUSES LIBEL ACTION. WOMAN PLAINTIFF WINS. Te Kuiti, Saturday. One of those risque postcards was the tangible evidence in a libel case of very deep interest that has been threshed out at Te Kuiti, with a result in favor of the plaintiff, a married woman named Nellie Collett, who sued collectively William Heath, farmer, of Mokauiti, his wife Priscilla, and their son William, on account,of this postcard that Mrs. Heath sent her husband.
The card was enclosed in an envelope, but upon the address side was written the words: '"Hard luck you cannot trust your wife out of your sight." On the face was a series of pictures intending to show, first, a theatre party of two, then a tete-a-tete supper, then mutual caresses, and finally a couple wheeling a perambulator. All these were entitled "The Girl Question," and across the face of the girl was written praintifl's name, while the man was labelled as F. Hose,, who is in real life a married farmer, neighbor of the Colletts. Mr. G. P. Findlay represented the plaintiff, and counsel for the three defendants was Mr. J. D. Vernon. Mr. E. W. Burton, S.M., heard the case, in which the plaintiff claimed that because this postcard 'had been sent to her husband the happiness of her home waa broken, she herself was given much mental anguish, and the communication had th«
effect of greatly injuring lier character and reputation. Therefore she claimed £2OO as damages, and had brought the action, she asserted, to clear up her reputation in the eyes of her husband. Counsel for the plaintiff said relations between the two families had long been strained, and it was contended that Mrs. Heath herself had caused the postcard to be sent. Mrs. Collctt, during the absence of her husband in camp, had been living with friends in the somewhat wild district of Mokauiti. She had herself received the letter addressed to her husband, and had given it to him unopened. Mrs. Collett said Willie Heath, the sou, had come to her house to ask if her husband had received the card, and Willie told her he posted it, although his mother had thought of burning it, and then decided to "Let it go for a bit of fun." Witness denied absolutely that there was the slightest foundation of truth in the allegations on the card, which had been taken by both herself and her husband to mean that she had been unfaithful to him. Mrs. Heath had denied to witness having sent it, but had afterwards admitted the fact. A Mrs. Barlow, friend of the. Heaths, told the Court she had written the words that had made the card a personal insinuation, but she maintained that she had done so simply as a friend, and because Mrs. Heath was no scholar, and had not the slightest thought of harm. The card itself originally came from Miss Gladys Heath. The evidence of Willie Collett and his mother was rather contradictory, but the statements of the Colletts could not be shaken, and. after a considerable hearing, the Magistrate gave his verdict against the Heath family, saying that in his opinion, Mrs. Heath was undoubtedly a party to the libel, and since relations between her and Mrs. Collett had been strained for eighteen months she had acted with malice ih fact, and not merely malice in law. In view of other evidence, the Magistrate considered that her treatment of plaintiff for many months had gone close to persecution; he held also that since she had published the libel, she had tried to avoid liability by untrue statements, and had evidently Induced her children to give untrup accounts also, wjiich accounted for the diversity of their remarks under crossexamination. Parliament had held that damages were due to any woman if allegations were made concerning her chastity, although no actual damage had been done. He awarded Mrs. Collett £IOO and £24 costs*
WIFE FOR PKINCE. DREAMS OF AMERICAN MILLIONAIRES. Following oil the example of Princess Patricia, it is hoped that the Prince of Wales will be able to follow the dictates of his own heart (says Joseph W. Grigg, correspondent of the New York World). Most people would approve heartily of a love match with some British-born girl, but there have been suggestions also that it would be a welcome thing for both countries if the Prince should look for his wife in America, where every wouiau is an uncrowned democratic queen by right of birth. "The mere suggestion," says Mr. Grigg. will undoubtedly cause a fluttering of hearts among millionaire mothers with marriageable daughters, who, if the Prince should ever visit America—which is considered certain in the near future would have dreams that their own particular Cinderellas would have, metaphorically speaking, the foot that would fit the Boyal slipper, almost as if it had been made to order.
"These feelings will not be confined to American mothers with royal beea in their bonnets, for there are many on the European side of the Atlantic who know well that King George has it within his power to give consent to a marraige of the Prince with a commoner, providing always, of course, that she is not a Roman Catholic. "But there is the Prince's side of this important question, and those who know him also know how bored it makes him to talk about his future wife. The Prince, like any prospective swam, considers it his own business. His future subjects see in him a healthy, good-looking counterpart of his Roval grandfather, the late King Edward, and they like to regard him as such. t His association with the army soon nad its efiect. He began to appear in the eye of the camera as a quicklydeveloping young man with plenty of resolution and an ease of manner which delighted those who saw him on the screen. The physical chan.se was remarkable. .Stories began to trickle, back home, and they were all to his (ve'lit, One of the typical ones grew out of the Prince's indifference to personal danger. He was kindly remonstrated with for sloping off to very dangerous parts of the line in Flanders, and replied: 'Well, suppose I do get pipoed, hadn't I got pieniy of brot'n.'s' at home.'"
WHY AUCKLAND GIGGLES. Auckland has got the giggles. It happened thus: A well-known society ■dames "walked into one of the largest emporiums, and an assidious; shop-walk-er, scenting business, hurried her into a showroom in which there was a glorious iur coat recently unpacked. "Oh, what a perfect beauty!" she gurgled; "what will it cost?" "One hundred guinea!', madam. It ia distinctive, it is unique, not one person in Auckland has seen it yet!" The lady begged him to put it out of sigjit until she should have time to think. Presently she returned. "I tell you what I'll do," the said. "I will pay you fifty guineas out of my own pocket, if you will ring up my husband and get him to buy it for fifty." So the assiduous shopwalker rang up one of Auckland's biggest potentates, and said: "I- have a magnificent fur coat worth one hundred guineas, which for tr..de reason:; I will let you have for fifty. After some demur" and further enquiry, "Right you are," he snid,'"fetid it along." Very soon a very handsome little lady—not the wife—was seen tripping down Queen Street clad from nenil to foot in the perfect dream fur! And the funny thing is that it is nobody's turn to s.pjak. The society dame' is diffident about opening up the subject; the potentate naturally is mum;' and the lady friend, well so far she has not been called upon to say anything. But somehow the "good story" has got out as good stories,' will, and there you are!
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Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1919, Page 9
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2,058WOMAN'S WORLD Taranaki Daily News, 31 May 1919, Page 9
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