A SINGULAR CASE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 9724, 13 May 1892, Page 6

A SINGULAR CASE.

■ ■ AN IN VERG Ah* GILL ROMANCE. Pesss association.] INVEECAEtf JED, Mat 12. Quite a romance came JjjP before Mr Bawson, 8.M., this when a woman laid a complaint that James B.wwa, horsodealer, her husband, ha<3 de’serted her at Wallacetown and left her Restitute. The man denied all knowledge ot tb© complainant. and said that ho had nevsr seen her till he came to the hotel whes& he boarded last month and she claimed hint, fts her husband. The woman’s story wss that her maiden name was Mary Quealy y that she was a native of County Clare,Ireland; that she and defendant bad grown up together from childhood, and that in 1878, when she was sixteen, tbay were married. Being unable to keep house they continued to live with their parents *nd shortly afterwards Brown emigrated to this ‘Colony. Several years passed during, which, she, never heard from him, but rumours occasionally reaching her his whereabouts she came to New Zealand in 1869. As her husband had the msrrmge certificate, she brought an acknowledgment from'the priest who bad married them. She settled in Hokitika, where she had'ft half-brother and sister, and worked for Her living, all the time making mnuiries about her husband. Hearing thtft h. w»s living in Invercargill, and seeing , his name attached to a horse advertisement, she gave up her situation and came here ftadfuow identified the defendant as the man to whom she was married, although he ..denied; that he knew her. Crossexamined, she said that Mias Kelly, of Weetport, and Mr Martin Clohesy, of Beeftoo r inew both her and her husband, werein the village when they were married, and> not present, knew that the ceremony took place. Although she had been an attendant in a lunatic asylum, her association with the patients had not affected her mind. She had never claimed any other man as her husband. She bad always gone by the name of Mrs Brown, defendant’s counsel said that this was the Moond; woman in New Zealand who had claimed Brown as her husband. His Worship refused to make an order, and said if that.were done on such evidence, no man would be safe. Complainant’s solicitor asked that defendant should go into the witness-box, hut the other side declined, and was upheld by the Bench on the ground that, so far, there was no case to answer, defendant’s assertion that ho did not know the woman being sufficient till further proof of identity was brought. His counsel said that Brown would do his duty by the woman when she satisfied him that ehe was his wife.