CHAMPION MEAN MAN.

Matamata Record, Volume XIII, Issue 1110, 31 March 1930, Page 6

CHAMPION MEAN MAN.

ABERDEEN’S BEST JOKE. Aberdeen is laughing uproariously at its own latest joke—the story of a man who resorted to bigamy in order to save 50s a half-year on washing. * Here are the facts of the case in brief: the humorous narrative comes at the end. When Henry Smith, a farm servant, pleaded guilty to bigamy, the prosecutor (Mr Thomas Maclennan) said Smith asked the woman to marry him because if he had a wife it would save him £2 10s in a halfyear for washing. When Smith's first wife died he married her daughter by another man, but she left him. Describing the case as a comedy of errors, Sheriff Laing fined Smith £lO with the alternative of four day’s imprisonment. The story as told by the prosecutor, threw a lurid light on social conditions in the local countryside. He said that Smith’s first wife -was living peaceably with her illegitimate daughter when Smith went and proposed to her, and she married him. She lived only three months after the marriage. Her daughter was only 17 years of age, and Smith induced her to marry him. One day, Smith (said the prosecutor) turned up at an auction mart at Turriff, where a number of women were plucking fowls. Among them was Annabella McWilliams, who had been in the same farm service with him 12 year before. He asked her, and she replied, “ Ay I’m Annabella. Fit (what) are ye seekin’ me for ? ” He said, “ I wis wonderin’ if ye wkhcome an’ be my housekeeper.” “ Na, I dinna think that,” said the woman. i He stayed with her for about an hour, and said he would came back and see her on the day of the cattle show. On the cattle show he came back, but, instead of asking her again to be his housekeeper, he asked her to be his wife. The woman said j;he would think about it. He visited her regularly every fortnight after that, and later they came to Aberdeen to look for the “ Marriage Buroo.” They were directed to a lawyer’s office, and the sheriff (added the prosecutor) did the re3t of the work. They then went home to Turriff, where the marriage feast was waiting them, and next morning it got about the neighbours that “ Harry ” was married already, and that his wife was actually living there in Turriff. One of the neighbours went into the house and said to Annabella, “ They tell me that Harry is married already.” “ I dinna ken that,” said Annabella, “but I will need to speir (ask) at him.” She “ speired ”at him, and he said he had been married, but his wife was dead. The police made inquiries, and had no difficulty in tracing Smith’s second wife. The sheriff observed: “The crime of bigamy necessarily various in degree, according to the circumstances in which it has been committed. I confess that I cannot imagine circumstances which would more justify my taking a somewhat lenient course than those which have been disclosed in this case.”