A DUNEDIN DIVORCE CASE.

Evening Star, Issue 7475, 20 March 1888, Page 2

A DUNEDIN DIVORCE CASE.

The divorce case of Madden v. Madden, in which the parties to the Buit were former residents in Dunedin, was heard before Mr Justice Webb in the Divorce Court, Melbourne,' on the 7th March. Mary Florence Madden petitioned for a dissolution of her marriage with John Madden, who did not appear. The grounds, as given in the 1 Argus,' were:—The petitioner was married to the respondent at Knox Church, Dunedin, on the 17th June, 1880. She is twentyseven years of age, and was born in Tipperary, in Ireland. The respondent is thirty-one years of age, and was born at Hobart, in Tasmania. She was working in a clothing factory at Dunedin, and at the time of her marriage had saved L 175. The respondent was a bootmaker. On the day of the marriage Mr and Mrs Madden left Dunedin by the steamer Tarawera for Melbourne. On arriving in Melbourne they went to live at an hotel in William street. The petitioner gave to her husband theLl7s she had saved in Dunedin in order that he might furnish a house for them. The respondent, however, did not buy any furniture, but spent the money otherwise; and when his wife remonstrated with him he replied that he had only married her for her money, and did not want to have anything more to do with her. On another occasion she found him breaking open a box that contained her jewellery. She threatened to have him arrested, when he struck her several times in the face, knocking out one of her teeth and rendering her insensible. She afterwards pawned the jewellery for Ll2, and they took a house in Lincoln place, Carlton. He there left her, and went away for rive days. On his return she threatened to have him arrested for deserting her. The respondent thereupon struck her and stabbed her in the chin with a carving knife. He left her on the 25th July, 1880, and she had not seen him since. She had ascertained that he went back to New Zealand, and lived with a woman by whom he had two children. In 1886 he returned to Melbourne, and lived with another woman. The court granted a decree nid for dissolution of the marriage on the grounds of adultery and desertion.