SUPREME COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 9382, 23 March 1892, Page 3

SUPREME COURT

" DIVORCE AND MATRIMONIAL CAUSES. Tuesday, March 22. (Before his Honor Mr Justice Williams.) - • ARMSTRONG V. ARMSTRONG. Wife's petition for dissolution of marriage on the ground of a bigamous marriage contracted by the respondent. Mr F. R. Chapman appeared on behalf of the petitioner (Margaret Armstrong), and there was no appearance on behalf of the respondent (Benjamin Armstrong). Mr Cnapnian, in opening the case, stated that the parties were married on the 20th February, 1880, at the church of St. Matthias, in the parish of Poplar, London. The respondent at that time represented himself—and correctly represented himself—to be a widower. He had been married before, counsel thought, at Liverpool, and his former wife had died in Scotland. Ho had two children—a son and a daughter—by his former marriage. He remained with the petitioner in England for but a short time, and a fortnight after the marriage he went out as steward on an Orient liner to the Australian colonies. He had promised to send Home money to bring his wife and the children by his former marriage out to New South Wales; and, as a matter of fact, though he did not exactly comply with his promise, he sent Home third-class tickets for the passage of his wife and his daughter. The petitioner went out and lived with her husband for some time at a place called Junee, a railway station on one of the lines in New South Wales, but their house was burned, and they then went to Sydney. There the respondent took a coffee palace, or was appointed manager of a coffee palace, and he continued to live with his wife in Sydney, carrying on business in the coffee palace, and living with her in a house apart from it. Subsequently ho obtained the position of inspector of refreshment rooms under a contractor who had a number of these rooms. During all this time ho was living with his wifo in New South Wales, excepting that for some time she was obliged to go into a hospital on account of illhealth. There were disagreements between the parties in New South Wales, and the respondent, who seemed to have been a man of capricious temper, proposed to her a separation on the ground of these disagreements. She had 1o go home to Scotland, after being in the hospital at Sydney, for the climate of Australia was not suited to her health, and both before and after she went Home he made proposals to her that they should separate. He wished her to sign a deed of separation and ultimately when she was living in Scotland she consented to sign a deed of separation, which was made out in Scotch form and was ultimately oxecuted by both parties. He se_emed, however, after that, to have written affectionate letters, and one somewhat penitent letter to her, not altogether breaking off the relations between them, though they were separated. At one time he sent Home a paper in which he tried to stipulate that she should renounce her name of Armstrong. This seemed to he a sort of addendum to the deed of separation. The petitioner consented to a separation because she had heard that the respondent had become over-familiar with some femalo in his employ at one of the refreshment rooms. After that she continued to live in Scotland for some time and she lost sight ot her husband. She came out to the colonies on one occasion to search for him, but he had disappeared from the places where ho had been accustomed to live, and she was certainly able to hear nothing of him. Subsequently, she discovered from a communication of the respondent's own that he had settled in New Zealand, for he sent her a letter, and on the back of the envelope there was written, "If not found to be returned to Armstrong and Co., Rainbow Hotel, Princes street, Dunedin." The letter requested her to forward him a photograph of his nrst wife, which was in her album. Subsequently she received, by a somewhat round-about process, information that Armstrong had not only settled in Dunedin but had married in 1 'unedin. The petitioner, on learning this, very naturally took counsel of her legal advisers, and she was advised by them to take advice in New Zealand as to whether there was a cause of divorce. The result of the correspondence between her advisers in Scotland and New Zealand was that she came out to the colony to prosecute this suit, and she arrived here shortly before the petition was served. She came out under an assumed name, this being expressly done under the advice of her advisers here, for the reason that, from what was known of the character of Armstrong, if her name was seen in any passenger list, he might have deserted the young wife whom he married here and have disappeared. As to the fact of the re- • spondent's career here —he settled in Dunedin about July 1888 or probably earlier, and on the 7th November 1889 he contracted a bigamous marriage with a young woman named Alice Mary Maud Ramsay. The mother, Mrs Ramsay, was a stewardess in the service of the Union Steam Ship Company here, and her daughter was a very young woman, being only 18 years of age at the time. The respondent proposed to marry her, and he satisfied the young girl's mother that he was a widower, as he represented himself to be, by producing proofs of his first wife's death. The fact of his having had a second wife was disclosed subsequently when he brought his son and daughter by his first wife to live with his pseudowife at Dunedin. By some accident his son mentioned his stepmother, and it came "out that Armstrong was married a second time, but the respondent succeeded in allaying all suspicions about this. He lived here for a considerable time — in fact till the petitioner arrived. He had provided his young wife with a home, and had taken a house for her in Union street. He was employed as a steward in one of the Union Company's boats, and at the time when the process was served on him he was steward on board the Takapuna, which was trading between Lyttelton, Wellington, and Onehunga. The question of identification would, learned counsel said, present no difficulty, because, ■* apart from the identification of portraits, the respondent had signed a memo, on the petition, and his signature would readily be identified with his signature on the Union Company's pay sheets and on the letter in which he sent in his resignation to the company. As to the question of domicile, the respondent was a man who had no more than a purely technical domicile of origin. The son of an Irish father and an English mother, his father a soldier, he was himself born in garrison in the East Indies. That would perhaps make him domiciled in Ireland—a country in which he certainly never lived — and these circumstances rendered it peculiarly easy for him to adopt a domicile wherever he settled, for residence was primarily adoption of domicile. Dr Stuart (who celebrated the' marriage of the respondent in Dunedin), Graham Turton (of the stores department, Union Steam Ship Company), Maude Alice Mary Armstrong (niarrie 1 to the respondent in Dunedin), and Margaret Armstrong (the petitioner) were examined in support of the petition. Mr Chapman, in moving for a decree, asked his Honor under the circumstances to add to the decree a finding about the respondent's domicile, because he_ wished the judgment to have such a value that it would be unnecessary hereafter, in the event of Mrs Armstrong being annoyed by her husband in Scotland, to send out a commission to prove the domicile. His Honor: I have no doubt about the domicile being in New Zealand, and if you like to have that inserted in the decree you can. lam not at all sure that it is a prudent thing for you to dothat is a matter for your consideration —because if trouble arose in Scotland about it, the Scotch court might think that it was necessary to found jurisdiction, but if you choose to embody that in the decree you can. Mr Chapman said he would consider that, and asked that the registrar be allowed to take a note that he (Mr Chapman) should be at liberty to draw up a decree embodying that, if so advised. As a matter of form he would ask for costs. His Honor granted a rule nisi with costs, to be made absolute after the expiration of three months. ANDERSON" V. ANDERSON. Husband's petition for dissolution of marriage on the ground of adulteryMr Eraser appeared on behalf of the petitioner, James Anderson, of Macetown, miner; and there was no appearance on behalf of the respondent, Joseph Ann Anderson. The petition set out that the petitioner was legally married on the 27th July 1882 at the Pres : byteriau Manse at Stirling, in the provincial district of Otago, to Joseph Ann Beardsruove, spinster; that the parties subsequently lived and cohabited at Kaitangata, Fairfiold, and Benhar, all in the provincial district of Otago, for a period of about three years, and there was no issue of the marriage ; that in the year 1885 the respondent left the home provided for her by the petitioner without any just cause or excuse, and that during the year 1887 and subsequently, and up to and at the present time the respondent had been living and openly cohabiting and committing adultery with Edward Conway, of Reefton, baker. Mr Eraser was proceeding to open the case, when His Honor asked whether the case was ripe for trial, the citation having been served on the 18th February last. His view was that the responden could not be said to be in default until the 35 days mentioned in rule 32 had expired. Mr Fraser said that in that case he would ask that the hearing be allowed to stand over, and he would move afresh. The 35 days would expire on the 25th inst. The case was ordered to stand down, Mr Eraser to move on the 25th to fix the., date and time of <rtrial.