AMUSING BREACH OF PROMISE.

Waikato Times, Volume 2632, Issue 2632, 25 May 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

AMUSING BREACH OF PROMISE.

Amusing evidence was given in the Queen's Bench Division on Thursday, during the hearing of a case in which Mrs. Eliza Annie Simpkins, a widow, carrying on business as a confectioner in High-street, Clapham, sought to recover damages for breachof promise of marriage from Mr. John Garrett, a builder and contractor, of Old Town, Clapham. The defendant denied the promise and the breach. He went to the plaintiff's house to do some work, and when the work ceased his visits ceased. When she was ill he called, and plaintiff's mother and sister asked him to go up and see her, and he did so. He only asked her how she was. He did not kiss her. His Lordship: Have you ever kissed her ? Tho Witness : I beg your pardon, my lord. I have kissed her on one occasion, aud I may say on two ; but I was like a toad under the harrow. I could hardly get out of doing it (loud laughter). She said everything I had done for her was such a success, and she was going by me, and she squeezed me ; aud 1 said, "Well I don't know" (loud laughter). She tried to kiss me, and I kissed her. In answer to other questions, the witness declined to swear whether the plaintiff ever sat on his knee. In fact he was not sure himself. It was so long ago that he forgot. It did not occur often. He could not explain the circumstances. The plaintiff had asked him several times to be her husband, and he said, " No," he could not do that (laughter). He said, " Consider my family, and your own too ; what an unhappy lot we should be" (renewed laughter). Sometimes the mother would be at him. Pressed as to whether he did not kiss the paintiff in her bedroom when she was ill, the defendant said, I have gone in there, and the nurse was there. She could say whether I kissed her or not (laughter). You leave it to the nurse ? —Yes. Ultimately the jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff, with £75 damages. Stay of execution was refused.