PREFERRED CRIME.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 73, 28 March 1933, Page 5

PREFERRED CRIME.

WEALTHY MAN'S WIFE. IMPRISONED FOR BURGLARY. JUDGE GRANTS DIVORCE. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, March 24. "Tastefully dressed in brown crepe de chine, with touches of expensive fur at her neck and wrists, Mrs. Mulholland presented a striking figure of sombre beauty, as, lier classical features pale with emotion, she - admitted convictions J under the criminal calendar, absconding from bail, and adopting various aliases." In these terms one of our newspapers has recorded the opening of a recent divorce suit, which closed last week in favour of the husband, who is now formally released from the bonds of matrimony by the Court. What marriage has meant to Victor j Mulholland was made clear by the | evidence that he submitted to the judge, who, in summing up the case, said: "The petitioner seems a well-meaning, tolerant man, and I think that he speaks the truth." And this is what Mulholland had to say: —He was married in I I August, 1919, and two weeks after the i j ceremony his wife was arrested for. j house-breaking , . Mulholland is a boot ! manufacturer," a prosperous man with a large factory, and he seems to have; shown quiteremarkable forbearance and; sympathy for his wife throughout their chequered matrimonial career. Repeatedly Arrested. "I appeared at the Newtown Police Court," he said, "and paid the fine for two charges of stealing. I asked her why she did it, and she said 'I can't help it.'" But three weeks later, she was arrested and charged on three counts with theft. He bailed her out, paid her fines, and gave £20 security for her good behaviour. But again in a few weeks he was called back home I from work, his wife having been

arrested 'a third time, this time for house-breaking. In November, 1919, within three months after her marriage, she was sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment on each of two charges.At this time Mulholland was called away to America on business; but lie left word that his wife, after her release, was to stay with his mother, who would look after her during his absence. But when he got back from the United States his wife was not at hie mother's home, nor did he have any communication from her for the next six years. Brief Reconciliation. By that time he had decided to divorce her, for desertion, but in 1920, she wrote to him, begging for forgiveness. They were reconciled and they took a flat at Darlinghurst. But in three weeks' time Mrs. Mulholland, without consulting Her husband, took a position as nurse at a North Shore hospital. He could not j induce her to return, but in December, 1926, she wrote to tell him that she was in Melbourne. He went clown to see her, j and after her child was born she i promised to return home. He gave her £50, and left for Sydney to attend to his business; But in a few days a message brought him back to Melbourne a fain His wife had been arrested for "receiving." The unfortunate husband '■ went back with the baby to Sydney, and ! Mrs. Mulholland, sentenced in February. 1027, stayed behind to serve a year's hard labour. ! Mulholland saw no more of his wife till October, 1930, when she suddenly I appeared at his flat in Rushcutters Bay, : i asking to see the child. Mulholland had been "allowing hef £4 a week all along and offered to let her have the child for six months at a time, "if she would keep out of bad company." Then the child disappeared; and when MulholI land had traced his son and his wife I to a place in Darlinghurst, he found that she had been arrested again for ! "goods in custody." Once more he paid her fine—this was in August, 1931—but she found it impossible to resist temptation; and in August, 1932, she was arrested for "shoplifting" from David Jones'. Finally she was sentenced to three years' hard labour for "breaking and entering," and then the patience of the long-suffering Mulholland finally gave way. He appealed to the courts for freedom, and it was to contest the claim for divorce that Mre. Mulholland,

"with the pallor of the gaol walls upon her cheeks," came up from Long Bay Penitentiary to Sydney last week. Wife Contests Suit. Mrs. Mulholland not only contested the suit, alleging that her husband had deserted her, but she charged him with misconduct with his book-keeper, Molly O'Brien, who had been in his employ for six years. Apparently Mrs. Mulholland relied a great deal on the fact that MIS 3 O'Brien called her husband "Vic." But Molly had known him when she was a little girl at school—he was a friend of her family; and, as he said with an apologetic smile, "Everybody calls me 'Vic' —the kids in the factory do it." The judge could not see that any importance attached to this alleged familiarity, and in giving his decision he made it clear that nothing had been proved against Miss O'Brien, and that the charge against her and Mulholland had certainly not been sustained. The decision of the court therefore went in favour of the husband, who secured both his decree of divorce on ! the ground of desertion and the c'u's- ; tody of his child. But Mr. Justice Boyce included in his decision eome very natural comments upon the remarkable nature of the case and the character of this extraordinary woman—now declared "a habitual criminal." The daughter of a clergyman, well educated, handsome, married to a man who wa3 not only prosperous kindly and forgiving, she seemed unable to etand against the least temptation. "Married life," said the judge, "has no charni3 for her—she prefers her life of adventure and crime." Her husband is now at last free of this intolerable burden; and no doubt he fully deserves the sympathy that he has received. But there are cases in which the criminal impulse is definitely a disease; and surely in the whole range of criminal pathology there is na j stranger case than this.