MEANING OF KISS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 February 1939, Page 4

MEANING OF KISS

JUDGE ON CHANGED CUSTOMS BREACH OF PROMISE SUIT. JUDGMENT AGAINST WOMAN. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. A verdict for defendant was return-| ed by the jury in the Supreme Court in Wellington which heard the claim by Dorothy Ailsa May Stewart, Wellington, against Robert Frederick Meadows, company manager, Wellington, for £5OO damages for alleged breach of promise to marry. The jury was in retirement 55 minutes, the hearing, which occupied two days, concluding yesterday afternoon. The case was heard before Mr Justice Blair and a iury of four. Mr J. H. Dunn appeared for plaintiff and Mr O. C. Mazengarb for defendant. Defendant was cross-examined about the occasions when he met plaintiff after the date on which, he alleged, the engagement was mutually terminated. Mr Dunn: It is a fact, is it not, that Mrs Meadows is very wealthy? Defendant: I do not think so. Is it not a fact that she has a station in the Wairarapa? —I cannot call it a station—a farm. Defendant said there were a farm of 180 acres and another of 400 acres, but not other. He did not know his wife’s affairs in detail. The farms were not hers; she and her mother were interested in them. Mr Dunn: She has a share of the income and also an interest after Mrs Eglinton’s death? Defendant: I do not know the position.

Is it a fact that she has an income cf six or seven hundred pounds per annum?—l know she has a small private income, but what the extent of i+ is I do not know. A motor-car? Yes, she has a car. .And a house?—She has an interest in a house at the Hutt. What do you mean, “interest?” — She and her mother are involved in it. They have interests in property at the Hutt.

Is that the house you live in?—No. Is Mrs Meadows Mr Mazengarb: What on earth can private affairs have to do with the allegation that an engagement was broken off three years ago? His Honour said they could be relevant only to the question of damages. Mr Dunn said the reason he asked was that if plaintiff’s evidence that the engagement continued till defendant met Mrs Meadows were accepted he should, he submitted, be entitled to ask questions to show the cause of the change. His Honour: You cannot dig into Mrs Meadows’s private affairs. Mr Dunn: I do not want to. His Honour: Well, you are, and had better stop. In his final address Mr Mazengarb said defendant had acted honourably and plaintiff’s reputation had not been injured, nor had her purse been affected. .

Mr Dunn said the central , fact that defendant broke the engagement h'ad emerged plainly, though there was conflict in the evidence as to when he broke it. When plaintiff wrote, in answer to defendant’s request for “the sack,” that there was “no opposition,” she meant that there was not objection to the wedding being postponed. The contention that it did not terminate the engagement was supported by the fact that they discussed their position later * xu Summing up, his Honour said the point for decision was very narrow. The whole question was whether the engagement was mutually terminated in August, 1935. Remarking on defendant’s admission that he kissed plaintiff after he considered their engagement terminated, his Honour said that possibly he was old-fashioned and unable to decide the modern meaning of a kiss. At one time if a man danced more than once with a girl people began to talk about it, but now one could dance with the same girl every night in the week without 'any conclusions being drawn. Possibly similar changes had occurred in the exchanging of kisses. He did not know that significance there was in a kiss now and could not be of much help to the jury on that point. His Honour said he took it that plaintiff’s attitude was that she wanted to mark, and wanted the jury to mark, her sense of the injustice that had been done to her, and she considered it would help her if judgment were given against Meadows. His Honour pointed out that at the time when defendant said the engagement was broken off no. second woman had attracted his interest. _ Upon the jury returning with its verdict for defendant judgment was entered for him with costs.