A NEW ZEALAND DIVORCE CASE.

Waikato Times, Volume xxvi, Issue 2458, 8 May 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

A NEW ZEALAND DIVORCE CASE.

The case of Wakefield v. Wakefield and nnother was heard at Dunedin Monday. Mr Chapman appeared for the petitioner, and Mr Coo'c for the co-respondent, who was not present. Mr.E. Wakefield deposed that he was married to the respondent on the 15th of July, 1874. Dining the greater part of their married life they had lived at Tunaru. When witness became connected with the Wellington Press it became necessary to remove his household to that city. His wife wa» rery loath to le'we Timaiu, whsre all their friends were, but she ultimately agreed to go to Wellington in March last. When she came off the steamboat she wan very much depressed, and mentioned that Withers had accomponied her ai far as Lyttolton. Witness and his wife were always on affectionate term«, but after her arrival in Wellington nhe seomed to shrink from him, and for some tinio continued in very bad spiiits, and although witness several times attempted to gam her con fidence he was unsuccessful. Her dulness seomed to disappear for a few day", and thny lived on the old terms, but when she afterwards received letters from Withers her manner at once changed, and their relations became extremely painful and almost unbearable. No angry words passed, but she used to sit in silence, and appeared ! brooding. When it became necessary for witness to leave for Dunedin in connection with the libel caso, he asked her if anyone had been poisoning her mind against him. She said no one had said a word against I him, but she was very unhappy. Ho had a long interview with her, the result, of which wan that she told him she had been unfaithful to him in December, while at Timaru. Witness asked her if it was but a single ] act of madness, and whether she had been taken ad\antapre of in a moment of weakness : and she said she had formed an intimacy which had lasted for some time. Witness afterward» communicated with her father, to whom she made a confession. The respondent's father oxplainod to his daughter that there must be a dissolution of marriage. He asked her how she could have done inch a thing, and she said that she must have been mod. Witness still hoped that it was a delusion on her part, or that some favourable circuin.itances would come to light ; arrangements were therefore made that the respondent's father should make inquiries at Timaru while witness was at Duneidn, but it was found that there wan nothing for it but to take proceedings for divorce. Respondent was, now living with her parents. Mr McKenzie, manager of the Colonial Bank, said Withers had resigned the Timaru _ managership of the bank. His resignation was due to the allegations made against him, Withers admitted the truth of theso to witness. The evidence of the respondent's father, taken on commission, was handed into court. The court granted a decree nisi, and ordered that the petitioner should have the custody of the children, and that the corespondent should pay the cost*.

Hydrophobia, it is said, caused twenty•even deaths in London during the past year. The American papers report that in the coarse of last year nearly a million pounds of willow leaves, made up as tea, were sent from San Francisco to Shanghai, to be shipped thence to Europe as Chinese tea. This is right pleasant news for tea* drinkers. Not one of the 60,000 Hebrews in Now York City is the keeper of a liquor saloon. The prophetic denunciation of " him that giveth hia neighbour drink, tbafc pattest thy bottle to him, and makest him drunken also," is law to a Jew. A contemporary says, the horse's age is to be judged by the following signs : — After a horse is 9 years old, a wrinkle comes over the eyelid, at the upper corner of the lower lid, and every year thereafter he has one defined wrinkle, for each year over nine. If, for instance, a horse has three wrinkles he id twelve. Add the qunibe of wrinkles to nine, and you m\ Iwrny* get Ins ajye. " i * <