A TRAGEDY IN MINIATURE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1612, 21 January 1903, Page 20

A TRAGEDY IN MINIATURE.

(From Our Special -Correspondent.) LONDON, December 5. 'A sad and straugo history doubtless Jies underneath the case which occupied the attention of Mr Justice Rmley in the law courts for some days this week. The plot of the story began one and twenty years ago, when Samuel Healing had to be sent to a lunatic asylum. For some eleven years lie was confined; but he appears to have recovered his senses, since when he was engaged in cleaning windows, he bethought himself to leave a convenient catch open, and thereby escaped. But the world had not stood still. His business bad been sold, and his brother was .living -with the woman who was really Mrs Samuel Healing. The man who had hurst again from a living tomb into the world he had left years ago, demanded a divorce, winch he obtained with damages against bis brother, which have never been paid, and the restoration of the money which had been received for $ bis business. His brother William, after hearing some very plain speech from the Judge (“scoundrel” and “liar” Justice Ridley called him) was ordered to restore a hundred and fifty pounds. This is the bare framework of fact. But imagine the long years in the asylums, the recovery of' intellect, the return to +he world of reality—a world from which wife and business had departed. It is % veritable tragedy in miniature.