LOVE AND WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 29 November 1919, Page 11

LOVE AND WAR.

' A SOLDIER'S ROMANCE, /. ENLISTED AT THIRTEEN; MARRIED AT SEVENTEEN. Auckland, Nov. 24. A recent marriage, '.at the Registrar's office, between ,a returned, soldier aged 17 years, and a girl of 15 resulted iu the bridegroom, Edgar George Brown, coming before Mr- Hunt, S.M., to-day on a charge of having made a false declaration for the purpose of securing a. marriage certificate. The story of the evidence.clearly indicated that accused believed in the maxim that all. is fair in love or war. At, the tirrfe of his arrest he was orderly in the soldiers' annexe to the hospital, at .Auckland, and when taxed with having made a false . declaration to. 'the Registrar of Marriages he admitted the offence. His own account of himself was' that lie was the son of a mining engineer who lived iu Sydney, and that in 1914, when ho was -thirteen years of age, he enlisted as a bugler with the First Australian Expeditionary Force.. Ho saw service in Egypt, Gallipoli, and Fran.-e, and was wounded at the-Somme. .II" was invalided home and discharged in Australia early in May,'l9lß.. The sam* month ho came on to New Zealand, and though only si\>tren years of age, !;,> enlisted with the New Zealand rorces, giving his age ns 22 years. . He got as far as Sling Camp, -England, where he was sorted'out as medically unfit.and sent back to New Zealand. , Since his return by the Remuera in May last he had been .employed by the Defence Department at Trentham, and latterly at Auckland. . , In August, last he met it. girl, Gladys Reddaway, and though he knew, she was only fifteen years of age, he .married her at the Registrar's office, giving her nam" as .Pauline. Henderson, and that her ag» was 21 years, while he gave his own age as 25 years. He did not endeavour to get the consent, of the girl's parents to the marriage, and after- the marriage the girl, contimied to carry..on her work at a confectionery shop, and to live at Lome. , Accused pleaded guilty and was committed to the Supreme" Court for sentence.