STRANGE STORIES

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 37, 13 February 1931, Page 7

STRANGE STORIES

MARRIAGE WRECKS

Judge Amazed at Revelations

In Bigamy Cases.

"DEAD" HUSBAND RETURNED,

LONDON, February 12.

Two strange bigamy cases were heard at the Old Bailey. In the first, Mrs. Raie McLellan was prosecuted for marrying another man while her husband was alive. Her story, which was found to be true, was a remarkable one.

An official of the South African Government posted to her a form referring to her "late husband," who had not been seen since he went to Africa. She promptly remarried, and" then her first husband reappeared.

The judge discharged the woman, not only with a stainless character, but with regret that she was the victim of a bungling Government Department.

The two "husbands" and the woman afterwards met at luncheon. Both men wept. The real husband declared his intention to apply for a divorce and to disappear. A hfint threepenny-piece was handed to hi 6 wife for luck. He shook hands with the other man and walked away.

The second case, was equally remarkable. When William Chapman was sentenced to imprisonment for nine months for bigamy it was revealed that his real wife wrote Chapman's letters to the other woman, because he was unable to read or write. These were in affectionate terms, dictated by Chapman. In one letter, read in Court, it was proposed that the other woman should live with his wife, while "William is doing time."

The writer of tlie love letters exercised her privilege of not giving evidence against her husband, and the Court was deprived of an interesting cross-examina-tion.

"Ama?ing!" was the judge's only c6mment.