WIFE FOR HORSE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 59, 9 February 1925, Page 11

WIFE FOR HORSE

MEN'S NOVEL EXCHANGE; WEIRD FAMILY MIX-UP. BRISBANE, Jan. 28. An astonishing family mix-up has come to light as the result of an application by a woman for State aid tor her children, whoso father she had not seen for some months. She was not, she legally married to him, but some 10 years previously when she married another man, the second had come along and had offered his grey horse to the husband in exchange for his wife. Evidently the grey horse was irresistible, and was gladly accepted by the husband, who made the exchange. But the husband further demanded an additional 30s purchase money, really to make the bargain binding. The wife duly became a partner of the joys and sorrows of the erstwhile owner of the grey horse. An extraordinary set of circumstances later arose out of this partnership. The first pair had three children, and there were six children of the second union. When the first of these arrived the actual father registered it under his own name, but the mother had no register return for the second one. As the father was in the bush, she could not register the illegitimate child, nor obtain authority from him to do so, so she registered it in its own legal name. TEACHERS PERTURBED. The third got its name fixed up by the real father, but the fourth child suffered the same fate as the second. The fifth had the luck to be born when its male progenitor was handy, but the sixth bears the name of the second and fourth. Strange to say, the names under which the children are registered are tho names usedjby them and their parents when sent to school, and the teachers, who are unaware of the cause of tho tangle, got very much mixed up with the real relationships. Tho reason for the woman applying for State aid was that her second "husband" was out in the bush looking for work, shearing, and she had not heard from him for some months.