NOVELIST SUED.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXII, Issue LXII, 6 May 1911, Page 9

NOVELIST SUED.

HUSBAND'S CLAIM TO SIX PIGS

AND A CAT.

STRANGE DISPUTE

Remarkable litigation between Mrs Sherrard, an authoress, who is known as Irene Osgood, residing at Guilsborough Hall, Northampton, and her husband, Mr Robert Harborough Sherard, journalist and author, was heard in Northamp^ ton County Court recently before his Honor Judge Snagge. Mr Sherard'g action against his wife was to recover £100, or in the alternative the following articles: — A grey hunter. Six little pigs. Cat and a travelling basket. Bundle of papers relating to the divorce of the plaintiff's first wife. Number of autograph letters from royal personages. MSS. of three plays and of novels. Albums of newspaper cuttings. The defendant paid £2 into court in satisfaction of the claim for the cat, CLAIM TO AUTHORSHIP. Mr Sherard, a tall, powerfully built man, said that up to six years ago he was living a peaceful and prosperous life in the south of France, doing literary work. He then received a letter from the defendant^ whom he did not know, stating that she had read his book "Twenty years in Paris" with great interest, and, as she had literary ambitions herself, wished his advice. The result was he became her secretary. He did not receive any salary, but she gave him £100 to enable him to divorce his first wife. Two years later he married her at the Consulate in Paris. Her income was between £10,000 and £12,000 : a year. They returned to Guilsborough Hall, a big estate owned by his wife, where before long he found that she maintained an absolute monarchy. She ordered him never to give orders to her servants. No one was of importance there but madame, and he was treated worse than the dogs. He went through a sort of Calvary, and eventually, in September last, he was expelled by order of his wife's solicitors.

Speaking with emotion, he setfd th« only friend ne"Tiad at Guilsborough was his pet cat, and even that his wife had detained; It was the only thing that had reconciled him to existence in the place. With dramatic gestures Mr Sherard added, "Everything published by my wife under the name of Irene Osgood during the last five years, except the novel "To a Nun Confessed," has been written by me. I, Robert Sherard, am Irene Osgood." ••■."•■. Cross-examined, he admitted that the defendant wrote a novel before he knew her. Soon after marriage she gave him one of her hunters, purchased the pet cat for him, and encouraged him to go in for live-stock farming by building a piggery m tKe park and keeping six pigs. On one occasion his wife kicked him while two guests were present, saying, "You want a separation, do you? You will get a good kick." MRS SHERARD'S EVIDENCE. Mrs Sherard, in her evidence, denied; that she gave her husband the animals claimed. Her husband's statement that; he wrote her books was absolutely untrue. He only typed them for her, and collected some of the local color for one book, for which she gave him £100. She had in all given him hundreds of pounds before and after their marriage. His statement that he was the author of her books was simply made to damage her literary career. . Her writing was the only pleasure she had. It was iiot until after she married him: that she discovered he had been previously married; one day on his desk she found a bundle of papers relating to his divorce case. They were now in the hands of Messrs Lewis and Lewis, solicitors. When he was her secretary she gave him £50 for his wardrobe-as he was very poor and shabbily dressed. Giving judgment his honor ordered the divorce papers to be returned and that Mrs Sherard should surrender the hunter, cat, and certain manuscripts, or their value, which he put at the reduced sum of £42 ss. A stay of execution was allowed in view of an appeal. ■