FARCE IN REAL LIFE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXX, Issue 76, 1 April 1899, Page 2 (Supplement)

FARCE IN REAL LIFE.

STATIONERY CLERK JILTS A 'GOD-

GIVEN WIFE.'

One would hardly look In Her Majesty's Stationery Department for a clerk who incorporated love, poetry, and art, j-nid then found himself defendant in a breach of promise case in which his three-fold efforts cost him £200 damages. Yet that has been the case with John Benjamin Gotts, who appeared at Essex Assizes in regard to his affair with Florence Edna Markwell, who also knew something of stationery by reason of her position as a forewoman in a printing works at Leyton.

The Erith Road Mission, of Stratford, first attracted their kindred souls, and the defendant poured forth some reams embellished with poesy and sketches. Then he assured the plaintiff that his love was increasing, but last year it had increased so much that on his paying a visit to Hastings he had a surplus for ANOTHER LADY. The situation became somewhat complicated 'when, according to his letter breaking off the engagement, 'God talked to him about this matter,' and he found 'he must do what God wanted him to do, and that God wanted him to do his work alone.' The plaintiff was a matter-of-fact young lady, and she retorted, 'I am afraid th*at you are thinking more about the young lady than about God.'

'Edna,' he replied manfully, 'you are

right.'

A. touching scene ensued when the faithless one asked his betrothed to forgive him. She could not forgive him, was her reply, 'unless he had an answer from God in prayer.'

Solemnly they took off their rings and prayed together.

For a quarter of an hour they prayed on their knees.' Then Mr John Benjamin Gotts, so it appears, rose, kissed his sweetheart, placed their rings on gaain, and declared that 'God had joined them together even more strongly than at first.'

Alas for this lover's vows! 'His own dear, darling, God-.given wife,' and 'his precious darling,' has had her blighted affections assessed by an Essex jury at £200.