ACTION AGAINST A CLERGYMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9026, 12 April 1888, Page 5

ACTION AGAINST A CLERGYMAN.

CHARGED WITH LIBELLING THE

WIFE OF A FRIEND.

[BY TELEGRAPH.PRESS ASSOCIATION.] DuNEDrN", Wednesday. The Rev. Alfred Brunton, a well known Evangelist preacher here, is defendant in an action for libel begun in the Supreme Court to-day by Mrs. Dalbeybill, wife of a bank clerk. The libel is contained in the following passages in letters written by the Rev. Mr. Brunton to a relation of Mrs. Dalbeybill's in Tasmania :— " Dear Coz Lethbridge,—Let me say one thing at the outset. Nothing has raised poor Dalbeybill (meaning the plaintiff s husband) so much in my estimation as the way he has kept back his wife's (if she is his wife) disgrace. Not even to me did he hint at it, nor should I have known anything about .the affair but for a casual word dropped, which made me put certain questions, eliciting little by little the whole sad story. While Mrs. Dalbeybill hiis left no stone unturned toblacken his character both to myself and many others, Mr. Dalbeybill has never breathed a syllable of that which was only too ready to his hand had he wished to blacken hers. Now to my sad story. " Mrs. Dalbeybill had a child, a daughter, before her marriage to Mr. Dalbeybill. Though engaged to her for between 2 and 3 years, she never made known the fact to him that she was a mother till two or three days before the wedding. If Lizzie (meaning the plaintiff) does not look out she may go to gaol for bigamy. I think I have now given you all the facts for your coming to a fuller understanding of how matters stand between poor Mr. Dalbeybill and his wife, if she be his wife, as I think I said already. I am very strongly of opinion that she is not. The fact is, he has got into a morbid condition of thought and feeling and needs, if it were possible, a good rousing out of it. He thinks everybody is against him, and no doubt this most wretched state of mind has been brought about by the treachery (I can ,use no milder term) of one whom I am sure we once both loved and trusted, but who has now so cruelly betrayed him. I say now, ought I not to have said she has discovered herself as his betrayer from the very first of their acquaintance ? " The letter, of which the above is a part, was read by the defendant to a number of gentlemen in Dunedin. £2000 damages are claimed. The case will be continued tomorrow. • ;