A PECULIAR CASE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1074, 22 February 1883, Page 1

A PECULIAR CASE.

The Governor-General of Canada has been informed by despatch from the Secretary of State that the Queen will not be advised to exercise her power of disallowance in respect to the Act legalising matriagii with a deceased wife’s sister recently pa-js< din that colony. This Act is consequently now in force. Mr E J. Athawes, (he stipendiary magistrate at Sheeruess, has given a decision in a case in which ti e Oddfellows’ Friendly Society in that town had refused to pay the funeral allowance, £2O, on the death of one of their members, John Corner, to the deceased’s sons, on the ground that they were illegitimate children, Corner having married his deceased’s wife’s sister, whose issue they were. The case has excited much interest among the members df Working Men’s Friendly Societies throughout the kingdom. One of the deceased’s sons, David Corner, a shipwright in Sheeniess Dockyard, brought the present action as a test case, and, on his behalf, it was urged that tho rules of the Society did not state apecically that the wife and children should be lawful wife or orphans, and further that the deceased Corner had belonged to the Society since 1844, in 'which year he married his deceased wife’s sister, and continued to pay his subscriptions up to the time of his death in June last. The facts were well known to the Society, and the Society actually paid a funeral allowance to the deceased upon the death of his second wife, tho mother of the plaintiff, although they now refused to recognise the children as the children cArtlje deceased. His Worship then delivere 11 lengthy judgment. He should not attempt to deal with the case as affecting the deceased wife’s sister question, but he thought it was competent for the sec ty as an insurance society, for the par

of insurance, to recognise the children 0 a deceased wife’s sister as if they were the I iwful children, if there was evidence that they intended to do so. He was of opinion that in this case there was abundant evidence that the Society so intended and he held that they were there fore debarred by their own previous conduct from objecting to this claim. Then conduct in receiving the deceased’s contributions for 38 years was one continued protest that they ivould never raise such an objection. Hs decided this case on the facts peculiar (0 itself, and the decision must not be taken to settle any question affecting the issue of irregular marriages. He therefore gave a verdict for the plain'iff for the amount claimed, with full costs.