WIFE SWALLOWS LETTER.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 22, 26 January 1924, Page 19

WIFE SWALLOWS LETTER.

CURIOUS DIVORCE CASE. A wife who chewed and swallowed a letter rather than show it to her husband, figured in the Divorce Court recently. Walter McClean, a watch ' and clock maker, of Woodcroft Road, Wavertree, Liverpool, petitioned for a dissolution of his marriage with Amy McClean. citing as co-respondent Thomas Burgess, formerly an : hotel proprietor and a local councillor of Guide Bridge, Denton, near Stockport. The wife, it was said, was 37, her husband 43, and Burgess 63. Mrs. McLean married when she was IS. Mr. Tyndale, for the husband, said that since the proceedings Mrs. McClean had become insane. She was in an asylum for some time, but was afterwards released. McClean, lie added, was no doubt flattered by his wife's friendship with Burgess, who was in a superior social position. He was then a. member of the Opensliaw Council. Burgess at that time conducted motor tonrs, and Mrs. McClean went on several motor trips, and on a motor tour through the West of England, which Burgess was condacting. In a letter the wife wrote: "I am living for one thing—forgiveness. . . . There will never be another man; I have had a lesson for life." Giving evidence, McClean said in 1311 his wife received a letter from a friend nt Grimsby. When he asked her to show it to him.she put It in her mouth, chewed it up, and swallowed it. It was alleged that misconduct took place ln 1922, when respondent went on the motor tour through the West of England. When the wife returned, and her husband taxed her with misconduct, she tried to commit suicide by means of the gas ring, and was sent to a mental hospital. The hearing was adjourned.