MAN'S DOUBLE LIFE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XL, Issue 12401, 24 October 1903, Page 2 (Supplement)

MAN'S DOUBLE LIFE.

REMARKABLE STORY OF TEN YEARS' DECEPTION. '

THE BIGAMIST RELEASED.

Oxe of the. most extraordinary stones of double life and deception of women ever told in a Court of Justice was unfolded on September 10, at the Old Bailey, London. It , was the case of a man who for years kepttwo establishments within a quarter of a mile of one another, each woman ignorant of the other's existence and believing herself the only and lawful wife of the man. The prisoner in the dock. William I licopbilus Harvey, a rough-looking, bewildered nian with mild eves, pleaded busily to having bigamoiislv intermarried with one -Mary Deutry while his own wife was still alive. - it took the Recorded but. a few minutes to dispose of the case. The learned judge said that Harvey had ended this double me of bigamy by "a voluntarly confession. J.bo man had 'repented of his wrong, and had endeavoured to make amends, 'taking into consideration the fact that the prisoner had been in prison for six weeks, since the date of his surrender to the police, the Recorder sentenced him to three days' imprisonment, -which meant that Harvey was at once discharged. . , As Harvey stood in the dock, She dirt and misery of six weeks' imprisonment over him, "it was hard to picture him as the author of one of the most audacious deceptions ever disclosed at the Central Criminal Court. According to the calendar he is a carpenter, a man "in humble life, imperfectly educated.' From his place in thai ill-omen-ed wooden pen which pulls up short (sooner or later) so many false and foolish lives, he looked forth like"one lost upon the judge and the half-empty Court. His low-pitched pi'. of guilty was delivered in the voice of a man unaccustomed to string half a dozen words together coherently ; yet for years •he has lied coherently to two women, each of whom he called his wife.' His first and genuine marriage took place at Shoreditch in 1875—-twenty-eight years ago. Through all the intervening -'Mis he ihas been a model husband, invariably k:nd and apparently loving, never addicted to drink, and a chapel-goer. About ten years ago, while the Harveys .were living in Tyneham Road, Battersea, ■William Harvey came across a young working woman of his own class named Mary ©entry. She was then about twenty-eight; years of age, he was forty. The twelve years between them seems to have made it easy tor him to impose upon her crulity. He pretended to be a widower. After a period of courtship, the two were married at the registry office in Lavender Hill, and the only precaution Harvey took was to give his first name as " Walter'' instead of " William."

The next step was to establish Mrs. Harvey the second in rooms in Ro'lo-street, not a quarter of a mile distant from his legitimate home in Tyneham Road. Naturally Harvey desired to keep this bigamous home in Rollo-street hidden from the outside world. And equally naturally the second Mrs. Harvey desired what she was entitled to consider a legitimate marriage to be made known. So the prisoner was driven to fresh inventions'. He told her that he lived with a grown-up sou and daughter in a house that ready belonged to them. He could not take his wife there, nor indeed comfortably inform them of his second marriage, for a consequence of such a marriage would be to divert from them some property of which they had expectations.

At the same time, so far as Miss Dentry's relatives were concerned, no attempt was made to hush up the marriage. Three children were bonij and the pseudo husband allowed this establishment 12s a week not always very regularly paid. Luckily for her, Miss Den try was able to earn money by her own work. AMAZtXG &.VVACITT. As the years "went on without detection Harvey became more and more reckless. As a detective informed the Recorder yesterday, he continued to live on with his teal wife at Tyneham Road, as though there "was no shadow of the Old Bailey just round the corner. He never ceased to be the same indulgent, sober, kindly, chapel-going husband. He never slept one night at the house of his second wife, he always used to visit her in the day. His daily absences from Tyneham Road when he was at Rollostreet he" always explained by the nature of his employment. His nightly absences from Rollo-street were, of course, explained by the peculiar nature of his home. " J musn't give the children a good example of early hours, my dear," was his usual formula as he slipped away each evening at half-past ten. Detection, often seemed inevitable, yet detection never came. Harvey never hesitated to go out with Miss Dentry and her children. More than once while he was walking with her he met his grown-up son and the hitter's betrothed. On these occasions he would turn off into a side street, saying '" Here's my son and his young lady ; 1 don't want to speak- to them.' Miss Dentry on her side several times thought she saw her husband walking with " another" woman. On going up and speaking to the man he disclaimed all knowledge of her, and declared she must have made a mistake. She spoke to him about it when next he appeared at Rollo-street, and he explained it away by saying that he had a " doubule."

. The half-past ten rule of departure each evening from his pretended Lome was only broken once. His little daughter, at Rollostreet lay dying. The father and mother were watching her through a crisis that proved fatal as the night wore on. Halfpast ten came and Harvey rose to go, as ■usual.

'* " You cannot go,'' blazed out Miss Dentry ; " she is your child, and you must ■stay." Harvey stayed, but not later than half-past two on the following morning. He put on. mourning for this little one, brought nameless into the world yet loved by him so dearly. ■ • Harvey and his legitimate family moved to Fulham, and he tried to take Miss Dentry to Fulham also. .Once indeed his second wife actually paid a visit to the real Mrs. Harvey's Fulham house. Neither the grown-up son nor daughter was thereand certainly not the legitimate wife. Harvey had laid his plans too well for that. When he went for his holidays Miss Dentry never accompanied him.' He brought cake and sweetmeats for their children. "Annie's; cake," he used to say. ' Miss Dentry always imagined that Annie was the grown-up daughter. He had an accident, 'a ■chisel Laving struck him in the eye two or three days ago, -and he had- to go into hospital. His second *' wife" was not allowed by him to will—he wrote that no visitors were allowed. She afterwards found that "another" woman had been admitted to see him, though she did not as yet know that that "other" •woman was his lawful wife.

That was practically the beginning of the end. After his accident his visits became less frequent. Finally he stayed away lor nearly live weeks. Miss Denny wrote to him, and one of these epistles, signed "Your loving wife," fell into the real wife's hands, and led practically to the discovery of Harvey's double life. The Recorded, in passing sentence on Harvey, said that it was obvious that the fcecond "wife" was a woman of loose character, and why the prisoner had married her lie (the Recorder) could not conceiTe, unless it was that she had threatened to run away from him. \