WELLINGTON DIVORCE COURT.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9177, 28 August 1908, Page 5

WELLINGTON DIVORCE COURT.

BT TBLEGRAPfI PRESS ASSOCIATION. WELLINGTON, August 27. By the new provisions brought in by an Act Jof last session, lunacy w'as made the ground of a divorce. The first case pf the kind in New Zealand was brought in at the Supreme Court to-day, before Mr Justice Cooper. By direction of the Court the press was asked to refer to the parties as A.V.B. The petitioner deposed that she married respondent in 1889, at Wellington, and that there were three children of the marriage, two of them being still alive. Respondent had, she said, been an inmate of Mount View and Porirua Mental Hospitals during the last thirteen years. _ , Corroborative evidence was given by Dr Hassell, Superintendent of the Porirua Hospital. His Honour s?id he thought in this case that a decree nisi must be made. There was no discretion left to the Court. If two matters were proved, that was if the respondent was mentally afflicted and had been confined in the mental hospital for a period of not less than ten years within twelve years prior to the petition, and was not likely to recover from lunacy, and that there had been nothing in the condition of the petitioner or her habits to contribute to the lunacy, the Court must pronounce a decree. His Honour was satisfied that the case was established. The patient was committed to a mental hospital in 1895, suffering from dementia, which took the form of religious mania. During ten years he had been under the care of Dr Hassell, a highly qualified superintendent. This was not a case in which there was any reasonable probability —of course there was always a possibility—of recover}. But in a case of this kind, in which the dementia had been chronic, .arid had extended for a long period, the possibility of there being any recovery was exceedinly remote, and Dr Hassell said so. His Honour granted a decree nisi, to be made absolute at the expiration of six months.

Decrees nisi were granted in the cases:—Joseph E. Harlen v. Mary Elizabeth Harlen and Ralph Taylor (co-respondent); Evelyn Ellen McLennan, or White, v. John White, on the ground that petitioner was not legally married to respondent; William Samuel Furby v. Lily Furby, on the grounds of misconduct; Charles Henry Pearson v. Clara Jane Pearson, misconduct; Elizabeth Barrow v. William Barrow, ill-treat-ment; and Hannah Cassidy v. Harold Cassidy, misconduct. John Eaton Deadman applied for a dissolution of marriage against Eliza Jane Deadman, on the ground of noncompliance with an order for conjugal rights. Petitioner explained that he was a farmer living at Mauriceville, and that his wife had an income of £125 per year. His Honor granted the decree nisi, to be moved absolute at the expiration of six months, and gave the petitioner the interim custody of the children. Speaking generally, His Honor said they would not have many moi;e cases in whicn the grounds of the present case were the grounds of divorce. However, it was always necessary either to provide a wife with sufficient funds to recurn, or that she had sufficient means of her own to go back to her husband.