BURNED THE HOME DOWN.

Auckland Star, Volume XLII, Issue 216, 11 September 1911, Page 9

BURNED THE HOME DOWN.

DID NOT TRY TO SAVE WIFE AND CHILDREN. A startling story of a husband's callousness was told to Mr. Justice Gordon in the Divorce 'Court at Sydney. Emma Adeline Evans, formerly Miners, was appealing for the dissolution of her marriage with George Leopold Evans on the ground of desertion. Mr. Perry (instructed by Mr. E. R. Abigail) represented the petitioner, who said she was married on August 9, 1899, and t'hey went to live at Bega, where her .husband was a storekeeper. He was j unkind to her almost from the first. On February 5,- 1904, he told her that he was going to 'burn the store down and so get the insurance money. Petitioner said that if he did so She wovJd leave. That higlit she and the two children went to bed, and the next they knew was that they were .being dragged out of tiie place by a young man named Bennett, who had 'broken the door in. The respondent had not even troubled to tell them that he 'was going to burn the place that night, and he escaped by a window, taking no trouble to see whether they had got out or were safe. If it had not 'been for Bennett petitioner would have been suffocated. Ihc .place was burned to the ground, and oil they had left was the night-clothing that they stood up in. Afterwards her husband refused to provide for her, and she had to go to her parents at Nimitybelle. Since then she had .been working for her living, and for a long while she had seen nothing and heard nothing of him, although she had made many efforts to trace him. Other evidence was given, and his Honor gave the relief atked, making the decree returnable in six months.