AN ASTUTE JUDGE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1882, 23 April 1889, Page 1

AN ASTUTE JUDGE.

The Melbourne correspondent of an exchange writes—“Mr Justice Williams adopted an unusual course of procedure in a divorce suit a few days ago. It is one wbicli has been much debated in legal circles. The case was Kirk v. Kirk, and its details were of a highly unsavoury character. Kirk sued for a divorce from his wife, on the ground that since they had been separated she had given birth to an illegitimate child. Mrs Kirk raised no objection to the divorce, and everything was going merry as a marriagebell, if such a simile is allowable, until the judge put in hia word. He suddenly electrified Kirk’s counsel by ordering the sheriff to call certain witnesses whose names were not in the bill. These were a Mr and Mrs Smyth. After an adjournment Mrs Smyth was obtained and His Honor put her through a stiff examination. She, like Mrs Kirk, was living apart from her husband; and her evidence in the case was important, because she was acting as Kirk’s housekeeper. The conclusion the judge came to, after gleaning all he could, was that Kirk wished to get a divorce because he wanted to be free to marry Mrs Smyth, whose demand for a divorce from Smyth was to have followed; whilst Mrs Kirk had an equal desire for divorce, because she desired to marry the undisclosed father of the child. The only person who objected to the mutual arrangement was Smyth, who was the deus ex machina behind the judge. Mrs Smyth and Kirk both devoutly denied any impropriety, but neither of them could explain away a letter fr.om him to her while she still mated with her husband, in which she was addressed as “ My dear old Toucher.” Judge Williams did not consult Johnson or Webster as to the exact signification of the term “ toucher,” but he evidently did not consider it a legitimate form of address from a married man to another man’s wife. Mr Kirk was refused his divorce. Mr Justice Williams said he had no doubt whatever that the Court had jurisdiction to take the course it had taken. When the Court had any doubt as to the facts alleged in a divorce suit, it was a duty which was cast upon tbs Court to satisfy itself as to the truth of the facts alleged.