STATES OF A WIFE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 23 August 1924, Page 15

STATES OF A WIFE.

FAMOUS LEGAL DECISION. A remarkable abduction (says the London Daily Telegraph), which was followed by a famous lawsuit, is recalled by the death, at the age of 84 years, of Mr Edmund Jackson, a Blackburn resident). The son, of ,a naval captain, Mr Jackson in 1881 became acquainted at a picnic party with the daughter of a Clitheroe solicitor possessed of considerable means. After •less than a week’s engagement the couple were secretly married at Blackburn, but never cohabitated, and the husband successfully applied for an order for restitution of conjugal rights. It was never enforced, and subsequently the bride, when leaving Clitheroe church with her sister, w.as seized by her husband, forced into a carriage, and driven to the Blackburn residence. Her protectors followed in hot pursuit, but failed to overtake the abductors. A memorable house siege followed with the police watching night and day to serve official papers, and eventually the garrison capitulated at o o’clock in the morning to escape public attention. Litigation followed, and the Appeal Court ruled that the wife was not the husband’s chattel or slave, and restored her liberty. Airs Jackson predeceased her husband by 20 years.