CUPID IN THE CIRCUS

NZ Truth, Issue 1062, 1 April 1926, Page 7

CUPID IN THE CIRCUS

Glory Didn't Like Her Wild Hubby's Taming Tricks BEAUTY, BEER_AND BRONCHOS (From "Truth's" South Auckland Representative.) "Queensland Harry," equestrian dare-devil, has come to the conclusion that wild horses are not m it when it conies to taming" wild ; women.

HARRY CAHILL., better known to the public of New Zealand as '•Queensland Harry," rider and breaker of wild bronchos, apparently struck the snag of his life when Cupid shot his dart with unerring aim at Harry's heart m 1918. The dart, however, snapped off at an awkward angle. The bride, who brought into the treasury as a dowry, one thusand gilders, did not find the pictured love m a tent with Harry the bed of roses she had imagined. Glory Helen, to give Harry's bride her full Christian name, did not let her hubby get his hands on the thousand quidlets. She was a little too shrewd for that. She did, however, invest it m a proposition which, with the assistance of her husband's equestrian prowess, she hoped would swell the dowry into a fair-sized fortune. In short, she put the money into a circus, and anyone who has visited a fairground m this country during the past five or sii years must have heard Harry's wild whoop and seen the Australian aboriginal . decked out m his Wild West costume. If they were careless enough with their shillings they will also have paid Glory Helen the price of admittance to a very indifferent sho«v, for her part was to handle the shekels at the entrance. "A TERRIBLE RUMPUS." From what Glory told the Hamilton Court last week, however, when she applied for a separation from Harry and maintenance for herself, her husband's whoops and taming efforts were by no means confined to the circus. He was, she said, far too intimate with John Barleycorn, and on such occasions he 1 "took to" her m such a. way that she had become positively scared of him. ■ Although he was prohibited, he managed to get an ample supply of liquor, and on a'most every show night there was a terrible rumpus m the camp when Harry tried his taming tricks on his better-half. Ample evidence was brought to show that Harry knocked Glory about most unmercifully at times, and generally, when he was what is described as "tanked." he created a regular furore m the camp. Harry had a different story to tell, however. He was, m "fact, a perfectly innocent and greatly injured husband, and was far more sinned against than sinning. He stoutly maintained that he was not the bad man that Glory had tried to make out, and held thafshe was quite able to hold. her

own with him when it came io shiFting liquor. It appeared that Harry's chief grievance, as he proceeded with his story, was that he was not getting his fair share of the circus takings. This was a very sore point with him, seeing that he was the star attraction, "the big drum," as it were, of the whole show. This was, at any rate, Harry's estimate of himself, but it differed somewhat from his wife's appraisal of him, for she declared that the show got on quite well without him when he was "left out m the cold" at the great Ngaruawahia regatta last week. 1 At Morrinsville he made such "a holy show" of her and treated her so vilely, knocking her down,- kicking her and jumping on her, that he was told by her that the end of their alliance was at hand and she consequently excluded him from the bill at the Ngaruawahia regatta. LOST HIS SHARE. Harry attributed the trouble at Morrinsville, however, to the fact that his wife was drunk, and said she was m the habit of placing drink m his way. Had he had his fair share of the takings, he declared, he should. have been one of the wealthiest showmen about. Harry specified an instance of his wife's peculiar temperament an % d waywardness which, he said, occurred at one of the North Auckland centres where they were showing. He was m the ring going through one of his performances when his wife suddenly staged an unrehearsed act by rushing into the ring and scratching his face and kicking him. Harry, with the coolness of the veteran showman, merely passed the incident oft' as part of the show. When asked by his own counsel if he was prepared to make it up with Glory, Harry plaintively replied: "I adore the ground she walks on." Glory was not to be cajoled or mol 7 lifled by Harry's pathetic profession of devotion, however, and she stoutly refused to welcome him back. Magistrate Wyvern Wilson said there was no doubt from the evidence that defendant was an habitual inebriate. He believed also that complainant had been drunk on occasions. ' That, however, did not deprive her of protection against her husband's cruelty and inebriate habits. ' The Magistrate granted the wife's application and fixed the maintenance at £1 per week. He also allowed her two guineas costs.