ELOPING COUPLE CAUGHT ON TRAIN.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXXVIII, 12 March 1914, Page 7

ELOPING COUPLE CAUGHT ON TRAIN.

WIFE AND LODGER LEAVE

HOUSE AT EARLY MORN. FLICHT TO LONDON. HUSBAND DECLARES HE WAS GIVEN DRUGGED TEA. An elopement story with several features out of the ordinary was Tinfolded at Penzance last month. It was a grim little life drama, the chief actors in which were a sick husband who had but lately returned from abroad, his wife, and a lodger who had become one of the household during the husband’s absence. In the dock were Annie Ellis, thirtyseven, wife of a Cornish miner, of Trelew Cottage, St. Just, and Percy James Coekram, tiiir v :i. , who belongs to Exeter, but has u. u a lodger at Mrs Ellis’s house. 'lth/ wore charged with theft and the forgery

of a bank receipt. Mrs Ellis’s husband, it seems, has been in South Africa, where he contracted miner’s phthisis, and last month ho came home in a bad state of the disease. According to the . hatement of the prosecuting counsel, Ellis resented the presence of Cockram in tho house, and after some unpleasantness the wife promised that the lodger should go. After midnight on January 13 the husband alleged his wife gave him some tea which had a hitter taste, lie drank it and then fell asleep on his bed in the downstairs parlor. On awaking early the following morning tho«invalid found the door of his room locked and that his wife and five children (one an adopted son) had flown. During the husband’s slumbers the children stated Mrs Ellis and Cockram packed two large travelling trunks which at throe a.m. were carried to a postmaster's yard, a little distance away. At -5.30 Mrs Ellis, Coekram, and all tho children left the house, and with the trunks, were driven to Penzance, where Coekram took five railway tickets for Leeds, paying eight guineas for them. At Plymouth tho police intercepted the party, dragged them out of the train, and handed them over to Penzance county police. The trunks and their content’s, which were in the same train, formed the subject of the joint theft charge. ’WITHDRAWING INVALID'S MONEY. Regarding an accusation of forgery preferred against Coekram only, it was alleged that Mrs EHis went to a bank manager at St. Just on the Tuesday with her Husband's passbook and asked to withdraw his money, which amounted to over £59, saying that Edis had to borrow his passagemoney home and wanted to repay it.

The manager handed the woman a withdrawal form for her husband’s signature, and presently tho little daughter returned with it signed " William H. Ellis.” The manager himself took the money to the house and was informed by the wife that ho could not see the husband because he had just had a qualm and she feared he was dying.

The manager said the wife assured him that the husband signed the withdrawal form and that he was conscious at the time. Under whnt appeared to be very painful circumstances the manager did not further press the matter and handed the £.59 odd to Mrs Ellis, advising her to spend it carefully as she had a young family. The husband, however, maintained that on the Tuesday he was quite well enough to transact business, and declared that he never authorised his wife to draw from the hank. When Cockram took the tickets at Penzance Railway Station he was alleged to have written a luggage label in the presence of the booking mock, and it was when the polico compared the writing on this label with that on the bank receipt that they charged Cockram with the forgery of the letter, although Mrs EUs was said to have stated to a const.'.olo, •T admit that I forged his name. I did it myself. Percy (meaning Cockham) didn’t know I was going to do it.” On the arrest at Plymouth Mrs Ellis had £45 5s in her possession. Both prisoners were committed to the assizes on the charge of theft, and Cockham on the charge of forgery, and Mrs Ellis on the charge of uttering the forged bank receipt.