"POLICE! POLICE!"

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 66, 19 March 1925, Page 8

"POLICE! POLICE!"

A HUSBAND'S CHASE. HIS WIFE'S VISITOR. Because his wife had been seen with other men, Chesterfield Morten Calder left his home at Christchurch one day recently without telling the woman where he was going. The result was that the pair appeared at the Magistrate's Court before Mr. Wyvern Wilson, S.M., when Mrs. Calder asked for a maintentance order for herself and two children. Catherine Ellen Calder, for whom Mr. McCarthy appeared, was questioned at length by Mr. Cunningham, opposing counsel. She admitted that she had been divorced prior to her marriage with her present husband, and that the grounds had been misconduct. That, however, had been known to her husband at the time, she said. She denied that she had been unfaithful to her present husband. Complainant said that she had never misbehaved herself with any of the men whose names had been mentioned as frequent visitors to her house. Her husband had consented to the men coming about the house. Calder said that the whole cause of the trouble was hia wife's habit- of bringing other men about the house. There was one man of whom he had had hie suspicions for a long time. Coming home unexpectedly one night he i had found his wife in the scullery in her night-dress. Her male companion had his arm around her waist. "I called the fellow everything I could lay my tongue to," said witness, "and ordered him out of the house. Shortly after that my wife went to a party with him. later returning to my house in his company. The liglit went up in the front room and my wife was there. I chased the man out of the house and down the road past the Gladstone Hotel. The fellow ran like a hare, calling" out: 'Police! Police!' as he went. 'Yes!' I said. Til give you police if I get hold of you,' and I gave him a jolly good hiding." Witness said that there was another man, too, who had given trouble. He had seen this man in the scullery with, his wife also, and had ordered him out. He hadn't come back again, but a third caller had to be told to keep away on more than one occasion. The Magistrate said that the woman was obviously the cause of the trouble. Her husband had been fair and reasonable, but she did not seem to take any notice of his requests to keep_ the men away from the house. He believed I the husband's story and the woman had jonly herself to blame. She had been I seeii in compromising situations by her husband, who had suspected infidelity, and left her. He did not think, however, that £2 a week was enough to support two children and the woman, and he would make an order for £2 10/.