SATURDAY EXTRACTS. A CLERGYMAN IN A DIVORCE COURT.

Evening Post, Volume XXI, Issue 47, 26 February 1881, Page 4

SATURDAY EXTRACTS. A CLERGYMAN IN A DIVORCE COURT.

CURIOUS CASE. Tho suit of Ambro3e y. Ambrose was decided on Saturday, having occupied the attention of the Court for three days. It was a petition of the wife for a judicial separation by reason of tho alleged cruelty of the respondent, the Rev. John Ambrose, a clergyman, but without a living. He answered denying the charge, and alleged cruelty on tho part of his wife.—The parties became acquainted through an advertisement in a newspaper. The petitioner, who was 27 years of age, described^ horßelf as a widow with two children, while the RevJohn Ambrose was a widower, aged nearly 70. He was stated to be a " pig-dealer and briokmaker," and to be enjoying an income of £5000 a year.—Mrs. Henrietta Diana Ambrose (petitioner) said that she was married to the respondent in February, 1877, at the parish church, Marylebone. After the honeymoon, which was ppent at Paris, they came to reside at Copford, near Coloheßter. From the first tho respondent treat her badly. Hiß violence began seven weeks after their return from Paris. Upon three occasions he almost Btrangled her. On 1 Ith Juno, 1879, he struck her a violent blow, on a later occasion he tore her hair out by the handful and beat her violently.— Cross-examined by Mr. Inderwick, Q.C.: I think I said my father was a solicitor at Brighton. I represented myself as the widow of a solicitor, and that I had two children by him. I was married in Germany, but not to. this person, It was a not a real marriage. It id not true that I waß a widow. Some little time before my marriage I told my husband most of my history. I had then £200 in the bank.—Sir James Hannen: Were you ever on any private stage in the costumes shown in your photograph?— No. The costume was borrowea and I was photographed in it.—A number of witnesses were called to corroborate the charge of crudity. — The Rev. John Ambrose, the respondent, said he was a clergyman of the Church of England. He lived at Copford Lodge, near Colchester. He had been married before. Some time in 1876 he went to a matrimonial olfico "outof curiosity,"andaccidentally met petitioner. Sheßpoketohimonthoßtairß,and told him that she was a widow, with two children. He had some conversation with her, and wob afterwards introduced to her relations. Subsequently he married her. She told him that her husband died abroad. He thought that she was respectable, and that the children were legitimate. He found ha had got into mess, for she flirted with other men. (Laughter.) She was the topic of conversation throughout the hotel in Paris. He heard from his niece that she had run away from a school in Brighton, and afterwards lived with a man. It was not true that he had treated her with cruelty. She had beaten him. Site was always bullying and fighting him. ana* ns«il to Bay> " You dare not hit me. for the publio are against striking a woman.' (Laughter.) On one occasion she threw some hot tea over him, scratched his face, and pulled his whiskord. He was sure he never struck her, because she wanted him to do so to establish the charge of cruelty. (Laughter.) She was stronger than he was, and one of his fingers > was permanently injured throngh her violence. She smashed a quantity of his china, and used to abuse him "most gloriously" (laughter). He was afraid of her violence, and for three years lis life had been a perfect misery to him. Ho was dreadfully afraid of her. She took the sheets away from him on one occasion. Be had called her " a liar," but her language to 1 him was beyond description. She swore and used " Billingsgate language" (laughter). —Cross-examination continued: He had written to her, "Yours for ever, Amen," but he did not know why. A person at the matrimonial office claimed a commission in respect to the fortune the lady was said to be possessed of. She stated that she had £3600, but he had never seen a farthing of it (laughter). He had to pay £150 as commission.—You will never do this again, I hope P —No, that I won't; it is a lesson for me (laughter). lam never going to be such a fool.—Several relatives said they had witnessed acts of cruelty on the part of the wife. — Mr. Walsh, a county magistrate, said the Rev. J. Ambrose, with his face scratched and torn, came to him for advice.—Sir Jas. Hannen, in giving his decision, said that the charge of cruelty brought by Mrß. Ambrose against her husband had not been proved. He was of opinion that what she called by that name was the result of provocation. He would proceed to dismiss the petition, but in the answer of the respondent he had only denied the oruelty, *and did not make the charge agamat his wife, only praying for the petition to be dismissed. If the parties were well advised they would come to some arrangement, and therefore he (the learned judge) abstained from dismissing the petition at present, in order that the parties might Btill have an opportunity of showing that they had not entirely lost their senses (a laugh). ,