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Tuapeka Times, Volume V, Issue 253, 5 December 1872, Page 5

taid, after the ceremony, we were married. A stamped paper was given to Blecher. I could not read English then. I was satisfied that we were married. Some time after, we came direct to Nelson, where, on the 14th ■April, 186S, the first child was born. That child is Blecher's. On the way out Blecher said the paper given to him of our marriage was stolen. From the time we left Riga we lived together as man and wife, ''"he second child was born in February, 1870. The third was born in September Jast. After the second child was born he said it was not his, and that he could turn me out whenever he liked, as I had no proof of our marriage. I have always been faithful to Blecher. Before we were married he said he had L4OO. The defendant's real name is not Carl Blecher. It is Robert Deidrich. Since last September he h<»s treated me very badly. In the presence of the Rev. Mr Heine, Blecher said he was not married to me, and I then left him with Mr Heine. I often asked him to marry me, and he promised to do so from day to day. I could not leave him because I knew nobody, and could not speak English. Blecher became jealous of a German here, »nd said the second child was his. He also accused me of improper intimacy with someone else. I declare that I have always been faithful to Blecher.

The defence was that the story of the mock marriage was a mere fable, and that the first and last child were not Blecher's. The plaintiff, it was stated, had been very loose in her morals, and on terms of intimacy with other men. Mrs Leah Carter was put in the box to prove the allegations made for the defence regarding the plaintiff's conduct, but the evidence of this witness was of quite a contrary nature. She had lodged in the same house with the parties for a period of two year 3, and that her opinion of plaintiff ■was, so far as she knew, that was a thoroughly honest and faithful woman, and one of whom she never knew anything but good. * The Resident Magistrate {Mr Broad) in giving judgment, said that, in the course of a long experience on the Bench in New Zealand, he had never met with a more heartless and utterly shameful case, and the defence which the man had the insolence to offer only rendered his whole proceedings more disgraceful than they were before. The judgment waa that the defendant should pay 78 fid a week for each child, and 68 6d COSts in each of the three cases.