BEAUCHAMP'S BITTER PILL.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXII, Issue 147, 22 June 1901, Page 1 (Supplement)

BEAUCHAMP'S BITTER PILL.

SWINGING DAMAGES IN A SOCIETY DIVORCE. Mr Hugh Watt, "financier," is well known to any in Australia, and particularly well known to a certain gentleman in Adelaide who is the owner of a massive leg and a foot to match, and is said to have once been strongly tempted to allow them, to cooperate upon the financier's person. Hugh Watt in his time has played many parts, and his latest role is that of "co" in a divorce suit, which has occupied Sir Francis Jeune and a special jury during- the week, and has attracted a large amount of society's attention. Sir Reginald William Proctor Beauchamp, Bart., of LangIcy Park, Norwich, a well known traveller and sportsman, married in 1880, Lady Violet, daughter of the late Earl of j'todom. Twin daughters were born to them four years later, and for more than twenty years husband and wife lived together in harmony. Indeed it was only last year that Sir Reginald discovered any cause for; jealousy or suspicion of his wife's fidelity. In the early part of the summer he went to the Ope, and soon after his return he received a letter from Mrs Watt suggesting an undue intimacy between Lady Violet and her husband. This note caused Sir Reginald great pain, but that its contents were more or less true was evidenced by the cold manner 'in which certain "nice people" had begun to treat Lady Violet. Sir Reginald asked for explanations, but instead got a solicitor's letter calling him to account for his" "cruel and groundless" accusations, and accusing him of having been sufficiently cruel to his wife "for several years past" to make that lady feel she could no longer live with him. The solicitors wound up by asking Sir Reginald for the name of his solicitors so that a separation could ba arranges, and threatening that if t7u? nusband wouldn't agree to part privately, his wife would apply for a judicial separation. Sir Reginald, however, was not to be bluffed in this fashion. He saw his wife and obtained from her an apology and a retraction of the statements made by her solicitors, and made the men of law "eat their words" also. Apparently Lady Violet managed to convince her husband that the insinuations of Mrs Watts were baseless, for the pair appear to have kissed and made friends. They lived together till December 3rd, but on that day Lady Violet left Langley Park. She gave no reasons for her flight, but a letter written by hei* to Mr Hugh Watt fell into Mrs Watt's hands, and "gave the show away" in a manner most complete. This is the remarkable document Mrs Watt handed to Sir Reginald:

"Friday Night.—My Darling Lore: i have been thinking of you all this evening. I love you intensely, and I did feel it so having1 to-night to part with you for a little time. Not to be with you is' unbearable, and I only trust the time may not be long before we may always be together, and I will do all I can when I am there to make everything happy and pleasant for you, and see after you and everything. It would be my greatest pleasure to do all I could to save you trouble. I thank you a thousand times for all your kindness and generosity to me. Remember, I am ready at any time when you want me, and see your way clear. The times I have spent with you have been the happiest I have spent in my life. It's a privilege listening to you, and all you say is most interesting. Do, darling, take great care of yourself. I shall never be happy until you are quite away from that creature. We must make the most of the time, and to be with you will be happiness, and I would do all you wish. .... in fact, would be entirely your slave, and you would never regret the step. We seem to have h,een brought together on purpose, and I feel I can relyon you and trust you. Dearest darlling, the only happy times I have ever had are those with you. All those expeditions with you have been so enjoyable."

The guilty pair were traced to Brighton, Londpn and other places, and proof sufficient of their relationship obtained to justify Sir Reginald at once applying^for release from his matrimonial yoke. He, however, was anxious before all things to avoid scandal, and believing that a temporary condition of mental aberration was at the bottom of his wife's conduct, he wrote to her begging her to return home, "and all will be forgiven and forgotten." Said he: "It is not so much on my account that I fear the scandal, for I have nothing to fear from your threats, which you must know in your heart are groundless, but do remember your mother, aunt and children. Think of yourself also—a pauper and an outcast. Who can you expect to associate with but the scum of society? And thrown aside like a toy when tired of. I can say no more. I don't care so much for myself, but the misery you~are causing others and heaping' up for yourself is maddening.—Your still loving husband."

To his pleading-s Ea3y Violet turned a deaf ear, aad having- waited two months Sir Reginald filed his suit. Lady Violet's answer was a defence in which the most scandalous charges were made against her husband— charges which Sir Reginald's counsel said he did not intend to open in a public court, because they were "of the most nauseous character." The charge originally made, misconduct on Sir Reginald's part, was withdrawn, but a charge which affected the petitioner's honour more deeply still was substituted. Lady Violet alleged that her husband systematically and habitually connived at her adultery not only with Hugh Watt, but with many other people with whom she associated in society. She alleged that prior to or about 1884, she made a compact with her husband that she was to pursue Her own life, live her own way, and pursue her own amours, without any check on his part, and that he was to have a corresponding liberty. And she said that in the course of that year she c

had occasion to complain of his conduct with :i lady, when he reminded her of the compact. In July, 1888, Sir Reginald found a correspondence which had been passing between his wife and a military officer, and he was assured by both of them that, though thau correspondence indicated! considerable intimacy, no guilty relationship had been formed. Sir Reginald then insisted on letters being written by his wife, and *hat gentleman stating that they had not been guilty oi any matrimonial offence, and giving him an assurance that 'he intimacy should cease. Sir Keginald's counsel said Lady Violet's allegations were fiction made with a view to mitigating damages. Co-respondents could say, said Mr Walton, that the woman who came to Court to cover herself with these shameless admissions was a worthless wife, for whose loss no compensation should be given. Sir Reginald did not want to take money as the price of his wife's dishonour, the loss which his home had suffered, or the outrage to which his feelings had been subjected by the uiiscruplous conduct of the co-respon-dent, but to ensure that some provision shall be made for the lady so that if afterwards Mr Watt, as Sir Reginald believed he would, threw her off, she would have something to fall back on. So far as Sir Reginald was concerned, and so far as his daughters were concerned, they would not touch a penny piece.

That portion of the public which was all agog for "spicy" details of the amours of Hugh Watt and Lady Violet got a grievous disappointment^ No prying chambermaids or peeping waiters were produced for examination in court, for on the second day's hearing an arrangement was come to by which the respondent's paramour was mulcted in £10,000 damages, and at the same time the petitioner was absolver from any cruelty, connivance, or conduct conducive to Lady Violet's departure from the path of virtue.

The lady's counsel seemed to have some desire to let Sir Eeginald leave the Court with a shadow on his character, for the respondent's aspersions on her husband's character were only withdrawn after considerable cackle. As the lady could not deny adultery, only one maid's evidence was put in by way of formal proof. She testified to having seen Mr Watt in Lady Violet's sleeping chamber, and to other exhibitions of an intimacy which should not exist between a married woman and some other woman's husband.

The damages are to be expended, it is understood, on the purchase of an annuity for the erring woman.