A GLASGOW ENOCH ARDEN CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5490, 21 June 1879, Page 7

A GLASGOW ENOCH ARDEN CASE.

Kather a peculiar case, somewhat of the Enoch Arden nature, has juat come under noticß in the Glasgow Sheriff Cmirt. The action was raised nnder the rnultiplepoinding category, in which the sum of £62 was at stake, but the facta brought out in connection with the matter are interesting. The parties in the case were Henry Wright and Agnes Burnside Sbarp, who were married on Sth December, 1854, both having been previously married. They liv>.d together as husband and wife till 1575, when the woman left Wright's house, in consequence of quarrels and ill-feeling, which tit that time existed between them. In February, 1574, a meeting took place in their house, at which a sum of £62 was paid by the mutual consent of the parties, and p'aced in the hands of the nominal raissrs, Claud Hamilton and John Stewart, to be retained by them for Mrs. Wright's behoof, and paid to her at Wright's death. This sum is the fund in dispute in the present njultipiepoinding which has been raised by the claimant Wright. He desires to have the moaey paid over to him on the ground that his marriage with Mrs. Hamilton in 1554 was nu'l, in respect that her former husband, Jamos Millar, was then and still is alive. Mrs. Millar was married in 1838 to James Millar, who left her in March. 1841, enlisted, and was sent to India. Sue had| according to her own account, two letters from him in 1544 and 1545, after which, she says, she heard no more from him, except that his uncle had got a ktter from a missionary stating that he was just dying. "I did not think," she says, "after that, that there was any use making any inquiry about him, and I did not do it" Nor does it appear that anything was heard of Millar until after the parties had ceased to live together in 1575, when Wright made some inquiries which led him to the conclusion that Miliar is still living, and in the lapse of 34 years bad been educated from a raw recruit to an officer in the Queen's service. .All tho considerations the Sheriff says, leave no doubt in his mind, in dealing with this question as a jury qnestion, that James Milla.-, who was married to Agnes Barnside in IS3S, was alive when he went through the form of m.irriage with Wright, in 1554, and probaHly still lives. The marriage bsing thus null, the £62 would be a provision made for the wife under essential errors, and would fall to be restored to the claimant Wiight, if it had been furnished out of his funds, but it is tolerably that it was not so. It is admitted that Mrs. Miller carribd on iiusiuess on her own account as a money-lender in a srrnll way, and tad also a small drapery business both before and after her connection with Wright, who was a journeyman tailor with wages of 24i a-week and a family, and it is not alleged that he had means till 1574, when there was about £125 in the bank, and it appears that they divided it equally. I take it, therefore, that a fair aud right division was then made by the parties themselve?, and as there was no marriage there is no reason why the trust should be longer maintained.