AFTER THREE MONTHS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 28 June 1924, Page 14

AFTER THREE MONTHS.

WOMAN’S CLAIM FOR MAIN. TENANCE. ‘‘l have no sympathy with these women who throw up a billet, catch hold of old men, and after a row expect to be pensioned off for life,’’"said Mr. F. Iv. Hunt, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court at Auckland, when a woman sought maintenance from her husband, a retired railway servant at Mercer, to whom she was married three months ago. Mr. Schramm, who appeared for the wife, said that the husband’s declaration was that he would not keep her, even for the King of England. The Magistrate: ‘ ‘This is a ease of a middle-aged woman marrving an old fool.”

Air. Luxford (for the husband): “She does not call herself middle-aged. She says she is 36. 1 think 66 is more like it.”

The Magistrate: “She may have a mental defect but that is no reason why the country should keep her.” Mr. Luxford: “She was a housekeeper until she got into the toils of a matrimonial bureau.”

Mr. Schramm said the woman had declared that defendant’s grandchild was horn out of wedlock, because the parents were married at a registry office, and his reply had been that such doctrine was absolutely wicked.

Evidence was given by the husband that he was a railway employee who was retired because of mental unfitness. His pension was £7 8s 4d per month, and he had made a few pounds out of grazing land which he owned at Mercer. The Railway Department had taken 53 acres for railwayman’s cottages, and he was to receive £ISOO, but he had a loan of £IOOO from the State Advances Department and £SOO from a mercantile firm. The balance of the land, 150 acres, was worth about £lO per acre. The Magistrate: ‘ ‘Perhaps that was the bait.” (Laughter.) Air. Schramm: “Do you swear your property is not valued at £10,000?” The Magistrate: “Do not be absurd. The whole of Mercer is not worth £10,000.”

The woman, in reply to a question from the Bench, said her age was 35. The Alagistrate: “Thirty-five! She has got the figures the wrong way round.” * “This woman got hold of this man through a registry office,” continued Air. Hunt. “She was earning good money as a housekeeper, and was in one place for seven years. After being married for one month she made the most horrible accusations against her husband, which allegations proved to be absolutely unfounded and creations of her own mind. She left him. and started proceedings in which I made no order. Since then I have a medical certificate that she is unfit for work at present. As long as she thinks she can live on her husband she will never find work. I will make an order for 10s per week.”