A PICTORIAL RECORD

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LX, Issue 16, 28 February 1939, Page 3

A PICTORIAL RECORD

EVIDENCE IN DIVORCE CASE

PHOTOGRAPHS FROM AUTO-

MATIC CAMERA

(From The Guardian's London

Correspondent)

LONDON, February 4

An automatic camera this week provided evidence in a divorce case and enabled the husband to obtain his decree. The man is a Viennese scientific worker whose time is spent largely in laboratories filming the growth of plants with an automatic camera which makes single exposures each 10 hours. In between spells of filming plant life he was sent away for weeks at a time, travelling to distant places, making newsreels.

During these absences the young wife formed a friendship with which to while away the hours and satisfy her wounded vanity. Friendship developed into a warmer and closer relationship. The husband became suspicious. He decided to use his scientific Knowledge to trap his wife and her lover. He placed his camera in a corner of the parlour, where he knew his wife was accustomed to receive her guests. He told his wife he would be away for the week-end, adding that there were undeveloped and important films in the camera.

The rest of the story—her friend's arrival, his affectionate greeting, their embraces —was told in court by the unseen witness, the camera itself. For the film it contained, operating at ten-hourly intervals, had made a pictorial record of the wife's infidelity. There was a poignant scene in court when the public were ordered to leave and the .film was shown to the judge and jury.