LUKE OF THE FOOTLIGHTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 14692, 29 May 1911, Page 9

LUKE OF THE FOOTLIGHTS.

BANK CLERK TURNS ACTOR.

DESERTED WIFE'S STRUGGLE.

A remarkable divorce suit was heard last week in Melbourne, in which the husband exchanged the desk for the stage, abandoned his wife, and laid Himself open to a severe judicial castigation.

The petitioner, Gertrude May Smith, aged 30 years, of Balaclava, asked for a dissolution of her marriage with Frederic Coupe Smith, aged 38 years, formerly bank clerk, but now an actor, on the ground of desertion.

The marriage took place on May 30, 1899, and there are two children, both girls, the eldest being nine years old. According to the wife's evidence, the parties lived together in West Australia until 1901, when she came over to her husband's parents in Toorak, and remained for nearly a year, the first child being born there. While she was absent her husband resigned from his situation in a bank and joined the Taylor-Carrington Theatrical Company. Later, he induced her to join the company, and they continued in it until July, 1903. From that time to Christmas, 1903, they were out of employment. She went out as a lady's maid, and on Boxing Day, 1903, her husband joined the Coulter Dramatic Company. In 1904, having met him by appointment, she implored him to give up the stage, but he declined to do so. A couple of months afterwards she again went to see jiim. He declined to do anything for her, saying it, took him all his time to keep himself. She.brought the second baby with her, but, though he had never seen it before, he took no notice of it. She had taken a room in one of the suburbs, and earned a living by sewing. She had never seen her husband since, though he wrote two or three letters. The last was in October, 1904, and it contained 10s.

W. W. Bead, theatrical poster artist, who' knew the parties, said that he met the husband some time ago, and asked him why he did not go and see his wife. He admitted that he was making "good money," but that he spent it as fast as he made it. He expressed no desire to see either his wife or his child, and when he (witness) said it was a cowardly way for a man to act, he merely grinned. The Chief Justice: This is a case in which the petitioner has proved her case with all possible propriety. She has done her part as an honourable wife, and, as far as she can, as a good mother. She has worked hard to maintain herself, and •almost from the time she married she appears to have had no help from her husband. Her friends and his friends recognised the gross injustice he was . doing her, and tried to urge him to make some pretence towards saving his selfrespect. He appears to have preferred to leave decent, settled employment, in which at first he was able to make 6ome provision for the maintenance of his wife, in order to pursue a wandering, foolish, hopeless occupation. All that can be said of him in that line is that he has qualified himself to play the part of the first ruffian with great effect. It is difficult to imagine how a man can be so destitute of shame, even if he be a rascal. His wife, still a young woman, has approached him from time to time with a woman's arts and tried to win him back. When she had run him to earth at Geelong, she took her second baby to him, and his reception was to tell her he had no money, and he paid no notice whatever to the child. He had married a young girl, and left her, still a young girl, without a home, without hope, and without means, save what she could make by her own exertions, while he went off wandering around the world, getting enough to gratify his stomach and his conceit. The story told by him made it highly desirable that; he should be playing some part in gaol, for which he had qualified, and earning money there which should be handed to her. At least, she should know that the country was so far interested in her and her children as to make him work and earn money, not for his own squanderings, but to fulfil those responsibilities without the fulfilment of which society could not exist. A decree nisi, with costs, was granted, and the Chief Justice, addressing Mr. Power, who appeared for petitioner, said that steps ought to be taken to make the man pay alimony, and, if he did not pay, to put him in gaol.