BREACH OF PROMISE

Manawatu Times, Volume XLXI, Issue 3480, 14 December 1926, Page 2

BREACH OF PROMISE

A link between Australia, Canada and New Zealand ,though of a sentimental type, was severed in the Toronto Assizes recently, before Judge Rose, when Ethel Violet Chandler sued Joseph Henry Boyd, formerly of New Zealand, for breach of promise, claim, ing £SOOO and obtaining £IOOO, states the “New Zealand Herald” Vancouver correspondent. There was no defence. but respondent was represented by counsel, who pleaded for a nonsuit, asking whether plaintiff, who had been married in England and divorced in Australia, could reasonably claim damages for breach of a promise alleged to have been made elsewhere, ho said, "between the island Suva, in the Fiji Group, and New Zealand.” The story told by the plaintiff, an attractive, stylishly-dressed young woman, wearing a leopard skin coat, was that she was born in England, educated at Ruslan School, married in London in July, 1915, to Jack Chandler, an Australian architect. Engaged on war work at the time, she continued it, and ,in common with many other Anzac brides, went to Australia in 1919. . “We went to live in a suburb of Sydney for a short period,” said the plaintiff. “While we were there, my husband was convicted of blasphemy. 1 later found that he had been living with a married woman, with two children. My mother took proceedings and I obtained a divorce. Stewardess on the Niagara. “X obtained an engagement as stewardess on the Niagara, running between Sydney, Auckland and Vancouver. I received about £IOO each! passage, as well as money from the passengers. On four trips I made £550. Then I transferred to the Mahcno, running from Auckland to Sydney, making three trips a month. I made about £4OO in a year on her. In April, 1922, I joined the Makura, running to Vancouver, as chief stewardess. Between November, 1922, and July, 1924, I made about £I2OO, thus making about £2600 between 1921 and 1924.” Plaintiff described her first meeting with Joseph Henry Boyd, the defendant. “It was between Sydney and Auckland, in 1921,” she said. “But X did not get to know him very well until February, 1923, when I met him while running from Sydney to Vancouver. I became intimately acquainted with him, and he asked me to marry him. It was between Suva and Honolulu that ho proposed. When we arrived at Vancouver he went to Eastern Canada. I saw him next in Sydney. Then I saw him there again the next year. He said he hoped to take me to Canada to make a permanent home in Toronto, so I agreed to marry him. After that time I saw him usually in Auckland or Sydney.” Proposal Denied by Defendant. On one of her ocean trips, plaintiff said she met a number of prominent doctors. One of them offered her a position in his hospitals. Her fiance agreed that she should accept it; he would rather marry a dietition than a stewardess, he remarked. She took a position as matron in a hospital of 500 beds.

“I do not see,” said counsel for the defence, “why this Court should try tho case. Neither of the parties lives here. My client was travelling in Ontario and got a summons, and his friends told him to put In a defence. Since then he has returned to Sydney. Ho was in business in Auckland at the time, and had been there for a period of 12 years, so that he really was a. native. Plaintiff was not living anywhere in particular, and is now located in the United States.” Counsel said his client denied ever having proposed marriage to (ho plaintiff.

"I do not quite understand win; plaintiff moved to the hospital,” remarked the judge, as he awarded £IOOO damages. An application by counsel to have it Increased to eifOO was refused.