TIRED TOMMY.

NZ Truth, Issue 117, 14 September 1907, Page 5

TIRED TOMMY.

Marries a Girl and Lives on

Her Mother.

The extreme casualness of the tired colonial is exemplified best when he takes unto himself a wife. Very often he is forced into the arrange^ ment, and is too bored to continue it with satisfaction to the people most concerned. Francis Thomas Ayres, of IJunedin, made a ?irl named Emily Sarah happy on Awust 27 of last year. It is not clear how he managed to muster sufficient exertion, but. judging by his subsequent condition of tiredness, it must have been . a Teat struggle. According to his wife, who a—lied recently for an order under the Married Persons Summary Separation Act, he ddd work for three or four weeks after the ceremony, but sleening sickness, or the disease of "taihoa" then manifested itself, and he; expressed a strong disinclination fnr toil. The girl's mother had made arrangements to purchase a house by weekly instalments, and she permitted the young couple to live ■ here, rent free^ for some time. This suited Ayres right down to the ground,., more particularly as tho mother also supplied them with food. He did nothing for three or four months, and seemed quite unconcerned about the circumstance. Taxed with his , miserable conduct and lack of manhood, .he seemed much amused, and proceeded 1 to do nothing with even preatpr persistence. He certainly did do - % A FEW ODD JOBS. but a man like him must have pocket money, and he didn't drop into anything permanent until quite recently. The only thing he had bought for his wife and child since the marriage was a pair of boots. Perhaps he thought they would come m handy when the worst came to the worst. Shipwrecked mariners have found leather sustaining, when all else has failed. The wife stated further that she, had sometimes bread with no butter, and had been insufficiently fed while nursijig her. child. She had been without a fire on some days m. the bleak discomfort of Dunedin's winter months, and had used a small lamp to boil fche kettle on. For the defence, it was shown, that owing to the husband being out of work, the wife had had to put up with a little hardship, and did not care for it. According to her own evidence, she had received the necessaries of life within the *>asli six months. The grocer's bill for six weeks had amounted to £5 1-ls. which betrayed fair affluence, and Ayres denied all the wife's statements. Magistrate Widowson remarked it was quite clear to him that Avres had not done the best he could for his wife, and soemed to have .illow* ed himself to drift into casualness. | His Worship decided to adiourn th«* case for a week, and enable the parties to come to some agreement.