"PILLOW FIT TO BREED A FEVER"

NZ Truth, Issue 1229, 20 June 1929, Page 9

"PILLOW FIT TO BREED A FEVER"

{From "N.Z. Truth's" Special Dunedin Representative)., -r-HiiimiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiimiiiiiuiiiiniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiimiM j The mother-in-law was out to help her son defend j * 1 an application for separation and maintenance insti- | | tuted by the wife, and m the course of her occupancy of j | the witness-box she offered to produce to the court, § | "The boy's shirt that she (the complainant) boiled the , j | pudding m." §

APPARENTLY she had a veritable jumble, lot m the witnesses' room, for she begged the court's leave to produce, not only the shirt m which slie alleged the duff had been boiled, but also another article she described as "a pillow iit to breed fever." Mr. H. W. Bundle, S.M., declined the lady's offer to exhibit material authenticity of her assertions, preferring to take verbal evidence as the basis of his decision m the troubles between Donald-and Ella Sutherland. ' Their recent appearance was m connection with the husband's answer to previously- heard evidence m which Mrs. Sutherland, supported by her young son, levelled charges of most disgusting behavior on the part of her husband. Through Mr. A. C. Hanlon, Mrs. Sutherland maintained that her husband had ill-treated her and she asked that the. court make an order for maintenance. On behalf of . tho husband, Mr. E. J. Anderson called Mrs. Sutherland (sen.), mother-in-law of the complainant. She required little prompting from counsel,, and a*t times became most voluble. , "I have seen good clothing which had been used for cleaning thrown under the copper, and the pillow he laid his head on was fit to breed fever," she said, m recounting one, of her. visits to her son's house after Mrs. Sutherland (jun.) had left the home circle. i Gross-examined by Mr. Hanlon, Mrs.

i Sutherland stated that she could not , remember the occasion, m 1921, when i the case was first brought before the court, on which she had been discovered outside the courtroom standing on a chair. with her ear to, a ventilator. "And you've brought along, you say, : the fever pillow?" inquired counsel. "Yes, and the boy's shirt that she boiled the pudding m!" was the reply. Stating that he was employed m the postal branch of the P, and T. Department, Donald Sutherland denied all the. allegations made against him by his wife. It was his opinion that she was m a very poor state of health. "She said once that she had had a row with her sister Maggie, and that she had learnt her lesson and wanted to come back,", he said, when referring to an occasion when his wife had returned to him after leaving home. -'/■., ''The way she handled the money, T was compelled to control the purse. . . . I have spent money on her taking her to pictures and entertainments and getting her ns much enjoyment as possible, thinking that it would, relieve her bad state of health.'' To Mr. Hanlon. Sutherland repeated that he "emphatically" denied all his wife's allegations; adding "I am proud of my children and sorry- for my wife." His explanation of his young son backing up his mother's story was that the lad had been "put up to it." His Worship adjourned the case sine die, during which time he will consider his judgment. '