10/- FOR WIFE

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 September 1945, Page 4

10/- FOR WIFE

JUDGE ON “MEANEST MAN” LONDON, August 1. Mrs Dorothy Eugenie Neesham, Montpelier Street, Brighton, was granted a decree nisi at Sussex Assizes, with costs, against her husband, Francis Walter Neesham, Wilbury Road, Hove, on the grounds pt cruelty. She was granted the custody of the only child. She said that her husband, with an income of £2OOO a year, allowed her 10/- a week, from which she had to buy her own food. , Mr Justice Cassels said: Accepting, as I do, the evidence of the petitioner, which is unanswered, it would seem that she succeeded in marrying one who could justifiably have been, called the meanest man in Brighton.” The judge said that the marriage took place in 1934 when the oetitioner ,a spinster of 36, married a widower of 65. The husband treated his wife with studied meanness, and calculated every item of expenditure before it was made, tie did not allow her to visit friends. Once, when she took a few cakes to a friend, he accused her of stealing them. No domestic servant would have tolerated such treatment for five minutes, whereas the petitioner put up with it for nine years.