Comedy of Divorce.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 57, 22 June 1908, Page 6

Comedy of Divorce.

INGENIOUS FRAUD ON A JEALOUS WIJPE, Judge and jury and a crowded audience of specially invited friends of the defendant were convulsed with laughter in the Supreme Court of New York owing to the comic turn suddenly imparted to a suit for divorce brought by Mrs Edith Ainslee Brewer against Mr William S. Brewer, a wealthy merchant. The case against Mr Brewer seemed overwhelming. Private detectives employed by the •plaintiff .had the court with spectacular proofs of their own acumen and the defendant's guilt. They described how they traced him one night to the Astpr House Hotel, saw him greet a lady in the reception room, and register in the as. sumed name of *• Mr U. A. Reaful and wife." Recently Mr Brewer issued a cordial invitation to his friends to witness the denouement, and when the Court reassembled one morning he explained that the name as registered merely meant "you are a fool.-' He declared that seeing himself shadowed wherever he travelled by detectives hired by his wife, he determined to teach all jealous married people a lesson. Accordingly he arranged with his lawyer the details of a "magnificent practical joke." A lady friend of the lawyer was induced to greet him in the reception room of the hotel and to accompany him to the lift, whence she was secretly escorted by a detective out of the hotel by a private staircase. In the rooms which he had engaged Mr Brewer, his son, and the lawyer sat until long after midnight enjoying thn joke and champagne supper. On the opposite side of the corridor detectives sat all night at the keyhole of another room tor the purpose of watching Mr Brewer. They swore in Court that 1 Mrs U. A. Reaful" remained with him.