AN OUNCE OF VITRIOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19720, 20 August 1927, Page 2 (Supplement)

AN OUNCE OF VITRIOL.

MAN'S ATTACK ON WIFE.

SEVERE BURNS ON CHEST,

MINER'S " HORRIBLE ACT."

THREE YEARS IN PRISON. Remarking that the throwing of corrosive fluid at another person was one of the most terrible of crimes, Mr. Justice Mnckinnon, at Newcastle, England, passed sentence of three years' penal servitude on William Mortensen, a 34-year-old miner, for hurling nearly an ounce of pure vitriol at his newlv-married wife. Prisoner, a well-built young fellow wTlh a wealth of auburn hair,'adopted quite an unconcerned attitude during the trial, and, although entering a formal plea o£ not guilty, had nothing to say. He was a wiuowei with two children, but married again this year and went to live at South Shields, where, in addilio/i to his ordinary work, he did some business with a kind of "cat and dog hospital." Not long after the marriage monetary trouble occurred and the bailiffs took possession of the house. As a result, the wife went to live with her people and Mortensen went into lodgings. Mrs. Mortensen visited him most days, but the man, explained counsel for the prosecution, got annoyed with her because she would not go and live with him, and insisted on their having a home of their own. Man's Cowardly Act. On May 21 the wife met her husband at South Shields by appointment, and, having secured some furniture, they were accompanying the cart conveying it when Mortensen suggested that they should take a "short cut" across a footpath. Mrs. Mortensen agreed, and then the man, after asking his wife if were happy, and receiving the reply, "Yes," but that if ho had cared much for her ho would not . have allowed the home to be broken up, threw the vitriol at her chest. He then ran away and the wife, who was badly burned, collapsed on reaching her mother's house.

When arrested, Mortensen remarked, "I knew it would mark her for the time being, ttut I did not intend to mark her for life." Mrs. Mortensen, in the witness box, bore out this story of the attack, and added that her husband had previously threatened her. He had told her to beware or he would "mark her or blind her." At counsel's request, the woman bared her neck and displayed to the jury some of the scars of her injuries. " Trying to Make Believe." A doctor, describing the burns which were on the neck and chest, declared thai the injuries must necessarily have been painful, and they were not altogether without their danger. The Judge: Will t-nv of them be permanent ? Yes, a little. Mortensen handed in a long statement, which was read to the jury. In this he •contended that, in "trying to make believe" he was going to strike his wife, the top accidentally came off the pot containing the vitriol. The judge, in sentencing the culprit to penal servitude, told him that in every case of the throwing of corrosive fluids the victims suffered terrible anguish and pain. The only mitigating fact in prisoners favour was that he did not throw at the woman's face. It was a horrible act, however, and a severe sentence was necessary.