NO WEDDING

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22402, 24 April 1936, Page 12

NO WEDDING

STOPPED BY TELEPHONE BRIDE AND GUESTS WAIT AN "UNHEROIC DEFENDANT" Forty-five minutes before the time fixed for a wedding a telephone m<?ssage was received that the bridegroom would "not be coming down." This statement was made at Lewes Assises during the hearing of a suit for breach of promise. Damages amounting to £220, with costs, were awarded to the jilted woman. Shp was Miss Doris Maude Burton, 29 years, of Neville Road, Hove, Sussex, and had sued Hubert Ricks,rd Camillo Fowler, a bank clerk, of Cl'iswick. Mr. Justice Finlay, in summing up, said d'f Fowler- " You may think that a more unheroic defendant has never appeared in any Court." Mr. Gerald Thesiger (defending) announced at the outset that, having read the letters in the case, he had decided that liability could not be contested, bo that the only issue was one of damages. He was not calling any evidence. / Mr. John Flowers, K.C., said that Fowler wa& " not only a cad, but such a coward that he would not go into the witness box to say it was his mother's , fault that he could not marry this girl." When the two people lived at Chiswick with their parents they were both members of a choir. Their friendship ripened into love, and they visited each other's homes. After the .Burton family had moved to Hove, there were frequent letters and visits, and defendaut from time to tinie mentioned the question of marriage. One' Sunday last July Fowler proposed while the couple were on the Downs, and was accepted. " Banns were published iu the church at AY est Blatchlngton, near Brighton, and the wedding was arranged for September 21. On August 25 Fowler came down with the engagement ring, an old ring of his mother's, which he was going to reset. Then, three days before the wedding, a curious thing happened. " The defendant telephoned from London and said his mother was very poorly, and that the wedding must bo put off. Plaintiff pointed out that everything was ready, and said she would go to London and see him. She went, and again defendant said he could not leave his mother. Miss Burton gathered that the mother was not in bed. No doctor had been called in, and son did not know what was the matter with her. " L gather the wedding was fixed for noon. About 10 o'clock Fowler telephoned from London that his mother was ill, and he could not leave her, and that the wedding must be postponed. Miss Burton's mother went to the telephone and spoke to him ' pretty straight,' and he eventually said he would come down at once. " The guests arrived. The best man was there and the poor girl, dressed for her wedding, was all ready. Then at 11.15 a.m. he had not the pluck to send a message himself, but someone rang up from London to say that he would not be coming down." Mr. Thesiger said Fowler had only asked for a postponement of the wedding until his mother's attitude changed. He would have been willing to marry her later on, but the proceedings had put an end to all that. Miss Burton, in evidence, said that two or three days after the day fixed for the wedding defendant told her it was due to his mother. Later he told her that his mother had taken a dislike to her. /