BREACH OF PROMISE CASE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2209, 4 September 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

BREACH OF PROMISE CASE.

At Nottingham, on Tueseay, Mr Justice Stephen heard the case of " Woombe.ll v. Optram." It was an action for breach of promise of marriage, in which the plaintiff claimed £500 damages. The defence denied the promise, denied the breach, and said that, if there had been a promise, it had been mutually rescinded. The pl«intitf said that she was 45 years of age. She had known the defendant Rince they were children. She lived at Otterton, and the defendant lived with his father and mother in the neighbourhood. In the spring of 1875 she went to tea" with the defendant's mother. After tea she was left alone with the defendant. He said, "I can't marry you now ; but as soon as anything ails my father I will." She said that she was willing to wait. Shortly afterwards she went to stay withhgr married sister, .and while she was "thefe ? the defendant wrote the two letters produced, in which he addressed her as " my dear Mary," called her "my love," and concluded, "I shall be so pleased to sea you, jny dear, as it is so long ■ince, With myvfcest lore, your affectionate lover, TVWiaiTrOutrain.'' The defendant afterwards came and stayed with hei sister, and was introduced as her accepted lover. They walked out together for 10 years. During that time she refined two offers because sh« was engaged. In the «ummer of 1885 the defendant's father died. The defendant's conduct then changed. On the 25th October she went to see him, and asked him to come to to. He said he was sorry that ho could net come and see h»»r, as he could not leave his. mother. Sho a«-ke 1 him to fulfil his promise to marry her, and he said, "Pnmii-es are like piocrusts made to be broken." She went to see him a second time, and ho hid himself behind a beehive. Soon after he married a widow in the village, who owned a publichouse. The defendant's father had 14 or 15 houses at Otterton and Eakrins:, producing £5 or £6 a year each, which defendant would have on his mother's de.vth. In cross-examination plaintiff said defendant had never given her a ring or any other present. They never had any quarrel.— Mr Lawrence, for the defendant, .said that this promise was alleged to have been made in 1875. Sincn then the defendant had been twice engaged to other people. He thought; that there must be some limitation in these things. All that the plaintiff's witnesses spoke to was that the pi untitf and the defendant walked out together. No present had been given, not even a ring. There were no kisses in evidence. He understood that there were three recognised stages in affairs of this kind. First, " walking out " together ; secondly, " keeping company :" and, lastly, a regular engagement. The plaintiff and defendant in this case had never passed beyond the first stage. The defendant was then examined by Mr Lindsell, and said that he was GO years old. His father's property brought in a little over £50 a year. His parents always wanted him to marry the plaintiff. He never promised to marry her. His father did most of the courting. His father talked to the plaintiff more than he did. In reply to the judge the defendant said that his uncle read the two letters ovor to him after they were written.— The judge found a verdict for the plaintiff with £150 damage", and his lordship gave judgment accordingly- __^_— -

Death of Cora Pearl.- -A Paris correspondent telegraphs :— An English notoriety of imperial France, Emma Crutch, bette* known as " Cora Pearl," died on Thursday in the house, in the Rue Bassaua, to which she retired when poverty came upon her. The malady of which she died was cancer. One realise* now with difficulty how a woman so utterly vulgar and vulgar-looking could occupy as a notoriety the position she took up here shortly after the Crimean war. Her last victim was Duval, the son of the butcher who founded the cheap restaurants, and who in the two years that ensued on his father's death spent on her and her stables and lapdoigs 17 millions of francs. In her memoirs she represented herself as being the daughter of the poet who wrote 11 Kathleen Mavourneen." Purpose ennobles everything, and the man or ■woman who has worthy purposes in life finds nothing that they demand trivial or menial. Take, for example, domestic life, made up as it is of numberless little things all demanding attention. There are some men so shallow and unphilosophical as to deem the ordering of a family an easy and trivial occupation that anybody could succeed in. As they leave | their own cares, and come to their own homes for rest and leisure, they imagine that the life of those who preside over them and make them what they are must be all rest and leisure. On the contrary, it is only as the wife and mother is thoughtful and large-hearted enough to realise the grand purposes of home-life, and to direot all efforts to »übt?erve those purposes, that she can gather up its thousand details and give to each one its due proportion of attention. Too many fathers make their boys feel that they are of or no account while they are boys. Lay a responsibility on a boy, and he will meet it in a manful spirit. On no account ignore his disposition to investigate. Help him to understand things. Enoourage (him to know what he in about. We too apt to treat a boy's seeking after |knowledge as mere idle curiosity. "Don't ask questions" is poor advice to boys. If you do not explain puzzling things to them, you oblige them to make many experiments before they find out; and, though experimental knowledge is best in one senne, in another it is not, for that which can be explained clearly does not need experimenting with. If the principle involved is understood, there is no further trouble, and the boy oan go ahead intelligently.