CAPRICE OF FATE.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1922, Page 7

CAPRICE OF FATE.

STRANGE ADELAIDE CASE. ILLNESS AND THEN DEATH. Sydney, Dec. 29. Just how capricious Fate can be at times has been ilustrated in Adelaide, whpre a strange story was told in the Civil Court of how first sickness and then death stepped in to prevent the hearing of a matrimonial suit. Counsel informed Mr. Justice Angus Parson that earlier in the year steps had been taken by Mrs. Maggie Daymond to obtain a divorce from her hlisband, M. T. Daymond, who took no stqps to defend the suit. The case was set down in the last civil sittings list for hearing, and was duly called on. Petitioner did not appear, and the case was struck out for want of prosecution. It was ascertained subsequently that at the very moment the case was called on petitioner was lying unconscious in an Ade.lide hospital, having been seized with illness in the street while on her way to the Court. The case was set down again for the present sittings, and last week the hearing was fixed for the following Tuesday morning. On Saturday morning petitioner died in a private hospital. Counsel, therefore, suggested that the petition should be dismissed for want of prosecution.

His Honor said he did not think he could make an order. Death put an end to the solicitor’s authority to act in such matters. ’He would not make a direct order, but the facts mentioned by counsel would be endorsed on the file.