THE SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE CASE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 4528, 3 December 1884, Page 2

THE SCANDALOUS MARRIAGE CASE.

Action tor' Divorce,

(by telegraph—press association.)

■.-.'.. Wellington, this day. In the Divorce Court the case of Monkton v. Monkton was heard yesterday. This was a petition for dissolution of marriage on. the part of the wife. Emma Monkton, the petitioner, deposed: I am tho wife of Charles Henry Monkton, photographer, and ■was married to him in Auckland, on the 23rd November, 1881, when I was twelve years and two months old. Mrs Lynch lived witli us after marriage. I had been previously living with Mrs Lynch, and Monkton had been cohabiting with her. I was forced into marriage by throats and persuasion. Monkton said he would turn me and Mrs Lynch (two sisters) out into the Btreets if I did not marry him. Mrs Lynch also persuaded me to marry him. My sister passed for my mother at the marriage,' • and my age was stated to be fifteen years. My mother was dead at the time; and my father was an imbecile. 1 did not occupy 'the same room us my husband that night. Mrs Lynch did. (Witness described in detail her movements for some months after marriage, resulting in her escaping from her husband.) 1 declined to go back to my husband because I hated him. He was recently sentenced to a, term of imprisonment for making a false declaration" under the Marriage Act. Alice Bascher, alias Lynch, alias Howell, was next called. She refused to answer whether she was a sister of the petitioner or not. His Honor warned her that ehe might be punished for contempt of Court, if ehe declined to answer reasonable questions. Witness said she could, not swoar tn what, she did not li now. She wont on t.n say that, to the best nf her belief, petitioner was her sister. Mr TV. C. Co,,per was the only other witness examined, and he gave evidence as to Lynch and Monkton having been sentenced for making a false declaration. This was the petitioner's case, and the matter was then adjourned for argument beforcrHis Honor aj to the question of legal cruelty.