WHEN THE VICAR CALLED ON HAMERTON

NZ Truth, Issue 1144, 3 November 1927, Page 3

WHEN THE VICAR CALLED ON HAMERTON

A Violent Temper

Gwendoline's Retort

Extravagant Wife ?

Husband's Evidence

Hamerton To Pay

"I've Been In Fear of My Life," Says Gwendoline Vera, Describing Alleged Revolver Threat

HUSBAND BLAMES WIFE'S EXTRAVAGANCE FOR BANKRUPTCY

WHEN Charles E. Hamerton complained about his garments being minus a button or two, his wife, Gwendoline Vera, is said to have retorted: "I've got no money to buy them!" To this the disbuttoned husband replied: "You don't want new buttons for old clothes!" One thing led to another m the usual way of married life until Gwendoline — after many years of conjugal wrangles — took her case to court, asking Magistrate Cutten to give her separation and maintenance on the grounds of persistent cruelty and failure to maintain. Invited by her oounsel, Lawyer Selwyn Adams, to reveal the unhappy life she had led with Charles, she stated that m the first place his language had been most objectionable. "It was dreadful and I spoke to him about it,'' she said. Urged to give some further instances of his unfitness to live beneath the same roof as herself, Gwendoline, m a voice which was very indistinct, told how Charles had caught her by the throat when she was milking on their farm at Papatonga, on the Hauraki Plains. When she had obtained domestic help he had told his wife to go; he had twisted her arms and given her a black eye. More than once he had threatened to take her life, the last time about eight weeks ago. "Do you attribute it ■to liquor?" asked her lawyer. "I've only seen him the worse for liquor twice," said witness. Questioned as to her husband's temperament, she replied: "He seems to get worked up over nothing and goes into a violent temper.

"Once when I suggested going to Papatoetoe to live, he flew into a violent temper and threatened to shoot me with a revolver he had m his box. I've been m fear of my life." Their home being at Riddell Road, St. Heliers, near Auckland, Gwendoline had run down to the beach with her children for a while, and later she had gone to see the vicar, who paid a visit to her husband. The house m which complainant had to live was one of the causes of the trouble, she asserted. It was very small; she had nowhere to see her friends when they called and no place to wash the clothes, while the stove smoked all over the room. The rent was only ten shillings. There was very little furniture, but her husband kicked the chairs about and put his foot through the sideboard. During the two years they had l,ived at the salubrious seaside resort, he had given her only £1 per week. "I hadn't enough for my clothes. I'd have meat for tea and he'd bring home fish. There was no management. He's knocked me on the head." "Tell the truth!" called Charles from his place beside his counsel, Lawyer Eric Inder. "Silence!" shouted the orderly. Counsel Adams demanded something more recent and was then told how — when complainant was bending over the stove — her husband had hit her and knocked her to the floor. Gwendoline went to Wellington on business connected with a petition to Parliament regarding their farm m the Hauraki. On her return, she found a note as follows: "Dear Mum, to C. E. Hamerton. I demand that you leave here and go to board m town." Subsequently she went to live with a Mrs. Barnet and determined to leave her husband. Then the woman with whom she had placed her children became ill and her husband took them, so she went down to their house morning' and evening to get them their meals. Lawyer Inder made some capital out

of the letter, the source of which, it seemed, was uncertain. The lawyer contended that the wife had left it for her husband, but this was explained away by the wife, who said it was his peculiar way of inscribing it. Her hußband had left it for her. "Tou say that he had left it for you te sign, but it's addressed to him. I say you are not telling the truth." The wife replied: "I suggest that you are trying to make me tell an untruth!" Lawyer Inder, m his best legal manner, "suggested" that Gwendoline had "suggested" that a doctor had "suggested" that Charles had consumption. "Therefore you want him to leave you." The wife retorted that perhaps It might be better for the children if her husband did not live m the same house with them — "with this chest trouble." "I wouldn't like the children to get consumption. He suggested living apart. I never did." Though he had threatened to shoot her twice, she thought her husband was frightened of the vicar. Asked why she had lived with "such a brute of a man" for so long and had

(From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Auckland Representative.)

Whatever the troubles of Adam and Eye may have been — what with serpents and fruit trees — there was one thing which caused no friction between them. That thing was a button.

itnmnniiiuuHwiuiiittuiwwiHniHiiimnßMiDimiuiHitttiWMiHiilimHMtiiii another child years after tiiey were married, complainant replied: "I was hoping all the time that he would be a better man. He's been getting worse lately." "Did you keep his home clean?" asked Lawyer Inder. "Under the circumstances and his brutality," was the reply. ( The blankets were washed m February—"you can't wash them m the winter" — and the children were kept clean, the wife explained. To add to her difficulties, she added that there were no sheets. There was much said about the farm and a house at Penrose; the return to the land — and how complainant had tried to help things along by peddling drapery with a horse and gig while her husband worked on the land; the second failure and bankruptcy; the second return to the city and her husband's work m an

[iiMHraiium*mHinmtnmtmtrmiinMiiiMiimmHfmnmimiHwmwimH«nw as she passed hhn: "Aren't you going to speak to daddy?" "I know both parties," said Rev. G. Houohen, the vicar ot St. Hellers. Mrs. Hamerton had him to him ■nd complained that her husband ill-treated her. As a result, ha went up to see the husband one evening. Mrs. Hamerton had gone to bed. The husband w»b told by the vicar that much of the discord and trouble might vanish if he provided his wife with a better home and made a fresh start. With this the defendant agreed, but said it was difficult to get a cottage to suit. Next time the pastor of the flock called, Hamerton was m bed and said he would not get up. The vicar's evidence was wending its quiet way along when Lawyer Inder interiected : "I

iron -moulding foundry. The wife did not consider the bankruptcy was due to her alleged extra-

vagance; her husband had never given her the whole of his earnings. It was true about the house being bought and sold at a profit and that he gave her £100. "Why tWs change after thirteen years?" asked Lawyer Inder. — "I don't know — he does many things without explanation," witness replied. The husband's lawyer wanted to know if it was a fact that the first thing complainant said on her return from Wellington was that she wanted a new set of false teeth. Didn't he say: "What about the petition?" — He might. Husband atod wife were then taken outside the courtroom and a little girl was brought m, who told the bench from her place beside the clerk of the court very much what her mother had said. "Dad's heen hitting mummy. He gave her a black eye and twisted her arm. He said he'd shoot her. He locked mummy out once, but I opened the door." She told Lawyer Inder that she had as much to eat at an orphanage as she had at home. On the return of the complainant to court, the little girl embraced her mother and before the adjournment was seen to kiss her father, who said, >

Much of the vicar's evidence amounted to hearsay, m counsel's opinion. "Hamerton was not asleep," retorted the witness, without being m any way put out. "His wife asked him to come out and he wouldn't." Mrs. Hamerton had mentioned the threat on her life. "I thought I'd prove it. She said the revolver was hidden m the garden and she went out and brought me the revolver. "I took it home and took seven cartridges out of it — and got rid of it. I later had a talk with them together, and he admitted, he had threatened her life. He said he was sorry he had done it." "I suggest he will deny it," stated Lawyer Inder. "What I stated is what took place," was the calm reply. "It was the Society for the Protection of Women and Children which brought th© C 8.56." It was to seek shelter, according to Mrs. Barnet, that Mrs. Hamerton came to her. "She seemed heart-broken." Lawyer Inder classified this as absurd and refrained from crossexamination. Charles E. Hamerton was called to state that he had been induced to return to the land as his wife did not like him working at his trade at Thames. He bought the house at Penrose m her name, as he could see nothing but

don't want to stop this sermon, but I don't see what a lot of this has to do with the case."

trouble ahead. When this was sold, he J bought her a business at Papatonga. As to the present, he said: "We can't pay our way. J maintain it's her extravagance." His wage when m work was £4 i»s. a week and he gave her £1 to pay the butcher, baker and milkman. The necessities he purchased himself. There had been a. serious row before his wife went to Wellington. "I cotnplained that my clothes were not looked after. There were buttons off. I spoke to her about it. She replied: 'If you want buttons on your clothes— buy some!*" The only time he had struck her was when he had made a sweeping move- j ment with his hand, which he ilhis- I trated for the benefit of the magistrate. "It hit her on the side of her neck near her ear." After the false teeth incident, his wife had announced: "I'm going over to Mrs. Baraet and staying there." "She said she oouldn't live with me," added witness. Counsel: Have you used bad language? — 'Very seldom. "Real bad language — or modified?" pressed counsel, m an effort to diagnose its quality. "Modified." Defendant was given paper and pencil to write an example, which the lawyer scanned. "That's not very bad — but it's not the way to spell it!" Another effort by Hamerton and this time: "Is that the worst?" A further complaint was that the house was neglected. The children were better looked after now than when at home. "Did your wife do the milking?" asked Lawyer Adams.

"She didn't like anyone to see her milking or doing work on the farm." He objected to paying her more than £1 a week. The button he wanted sewn on was.' on his trousers — a brace button. "Couldn't you sew it on yourself?" fired the wife's lawyer. "You don't suggest that' a husband should sew his own buttons on, do you?" came the almost agonized query from Lawyer Inder. Lawyer Adams for a moment looked doubtful and the other legal man hastened to add: "Are you a married man?" The rights of the benedicts hung on the answer, but no audible reply came. Hamerton stated that he had sewn buttons on and had been complimented on the manner m which it had been done. He had not told his wife to take a single ticket to Wellington. He had not threatened her life; the revolver was not registered. "This language you have written down — do you think it the right way to speak to your wife?" Hamerton, who was looking tired, replied: "'Course, it isn't." Lawyer Adams asked a question as to the furnituee casualties, but was interrupted by the opposition. "It's not the furniture which is applying for a separation." Furniture being side-tracked, complainant's lawyer tried another angle. "What's your opinion of Mr. Houchen?" "We don't want him to be up for libel," interrupted the breezy lawyer on the other side and defendant replied: "I don't know by what right he came into my house." Hamerton told the patient magistrate that he had been out of work three months m the last six, but he had earned about £1 a week even then. He had discovered a letter from hia wife to her father, which he thought was ungrateful. "I claim that she ia extravagant. She is very lazy." What do you want? — I want my children.

Lawyer Selwyn Adams had been engaged m conversation with the wife during this duologue and when it terminated he handed up to the defendant a piece of paper which contained 'Hanguage" which his wife had written as being used by him. "That's more like the language of her brother," commented Hamerton, adding a remark which showed some heat. H.is wife half rose m her seat. "May I stand up m defence of my brother?" The orderly — with his voice of command — shouted: "Silence!" Gwendoline subsided. A witness named Addison, a grocer, who said he was a brother-in-law of Hamerton, told the court that he would be sorry to see his children m a home such as the one which Mrs. Hamerton kept. "Do you think Mrs. Hamerton should keep the house m a better condition?" questioned Lawyer Adams. With great emphasis the witness replied: "Absolutely!" Magistrate Cutten refused to grant an order for separation, but made an order that until January 27 Hamerton was to pay his wife £1 a week. Meanwhile the children are to remain where they are. both parents to have access to them when desired.