PROMISE TO WED

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23097, 23 July 1938, Page 2 (Supplement)

PROMISE TO WED

POLICEMAN'S COURTSHIP "NO FLASH IN THE PAN " COURT ASSESSES DAMAGES "POR conduct which the UnderSheriff for Staffordshire described as "particularly callous, John Stanley Walsh, twenty-six, a police constable stationed at Bur-ton-on-Trent, was ordered to pay £IOO to Miss Gladys Johnson, twenty-six, of Stafford. It was the final stage of a breach of promise suit, remitted from the High Court to the Stafford Sheriff for the assessment of damages. Walsh and Miss Johnson, it was explained by Mr. MaeGregor Clarkson, for the girl, met at Stafford when they were both 19. At 21 they were engaged, and Walsh gave Miss Johnson a ring, so there was no question of a "flash in the pan courtship." Called Her "Duck" Later Walsh was transferred to Burton, and letters passed between them until last year. There was a little quarrel between the parties in August, 1936, said counsel. Walsh took umbrage because Miss Johnson had been seen with two other girls talking to three recruits in Stafford. , That "blew over" however, ana Walsh did not refer to the matter again until the spring of 1937, when he wrote to Miss Johnson a letter in which lie made the incident of the recruits an excuse for breaking off the engagement. Miss Johnson, stylishly dressed and a pood-looking woman, bore out her counsel's statement. In 1936, she said, she spent a holiday at Rhvl with Walsh's parents. Mr. Clarkson put to her a number of extracts from letters she had received from Walsh, in one of which the policeman wrote: , f '•1 have seen a seven-piece suite here, it's great. If I have looked in the window once 1 have looked at it 100 times. I wish I could get it. In another he said, "Duck, I am lost without you. No one to talk to, nobody to go out with." Tone Changed hi March last rear his tone changed. Walsh wrote then. "I am having a fine time here, so why worry at all. I am finished with being tied down. You are onlv young once. ' From that time, remarked Miss Johnson, Walsh's visits to Stafford became fewer, and when she asked for an j explanation he referred to the recruits, I although he had promised not to men- ! tion that matter again. He had given his word that they should marry during his holidays in September, 1937. . . The Under-Shcriff, entering judgment for £IOO. observed that there was no doubt Walsh got engaged and afterwards did not want to marry the girl. He admitted as much by not appearing in the High Court.