JACTITATION.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13586, 7 May 1906, Page 10

JACTITATION.

A STRANGE OAS*/. CFjtoii Oub Own Correspondent.) LONDON, -March 23. Jactitation ! Yes, it i 6 a veritable mouthful—a genuino jaw-breaker! Even the word is rarely met with. Still more rarely aro lawsuits on such a subject. One, however, has just been hoard and dealt with. Jactitation, of _course, conies from tho Latin word "iactitstio" which means vain or foolish boasting. " Jactitatioi-" of marriage is persisting in a false assertion that marriage has taken place. Tho case in which Sir Gorell Barnes delivered reserved judgment yesterday was as strange as any on record. It was brought by a builder named Ascroft, who sought to enjoin " perpetual silence" upon a woman who claimed the,right to bear his name. The daughter of a labourer, she had been a donicstio servant, first, in the house of Ihe petitioner's father, and afterwards in that of his sister, Her story was that the intimacy between them began while she was in the latter situation, and ihafc Ascroft promised her marriage if she would keep things absolutely quiet and make no trouble. The girl went into lodginps. and passed as tile wife of Ascroft, who frequently visited her. A child was horn in June, 1901, and registered in Ascroft's name. The latter's assertion was that no promise of marriage was ever made, and that no such ceremony took lilacs between them. Yet on Deeemlwr 10, J. 901. the Ciiorlton registrar. indisputably. and, indeed, admittedly married the girl under her maiden nanio of Ellen Foley to a man who signed hinv-oIF Harry Trevor, and. to him she banded over the marriage rertifieatc. to that the» date miglit be altered to deceive her relatives. Then she returned to her parents, and told her mother the whole story. Meanwhile. Ascroft still insisted on secrecv, induced her to write a lelter in which she acknowledged that, she had no right, to his name, and, though he did not live with her again) 6ent J'.er money regularly for four years! and in 190?, paid for her going to a hiyhelass girls' school a,t Soutlniort for a term's education. Eventually, in 1905, s h e pressed him to provide a home for her, and he rc-fusnd. thou'di lie offered to look after the child. Such was the girl's story.

Ascroft. on bis part, admitted the liaison, birt denied that ho had nuihorircd the resistrafion of the child in liis name, and state<l in courfc that ho did not. believe the infant to bo his. As fol* tho marriage IWovq tho registrar, ho produced" witness who said that, they bad seen him in BooHo on the dav in nuestion, a* an hour which mado it virtually imnossiblc for him to Jiavo been in Manchester at the time alleged. The two stories, of course, are in flat contradiction on the crucial point*. Hut the handwriting of the signature in the icuiutrflx s book wjh similar to that of Ascroft. and his alibi was bv no means conclusively substantiated. 'IVre was not a particle of evidence to show that a second man ba<l l>ecn mixed im in ifcc CMC. and it seemed nuite Inconceivable that anyone in the irirl's position should >e able to find a man mid? to marry her nt a registrar's offi-o who'was able to imitate ovncMv AfcroFt's and who would then vanish. Tlic- oirl's weal; point. was that she had written More admitting that slip had no title to AscroftV name, but it was lioinfotl out Hint these might easily have been extorted by prossuro; whilti it was perfect-]? clear that, Ascroft was anxious to l>wn (lie whole liaison a secret, both for his -own sake and also because his fatliot- was Mavnr of BootJe at the time. Ho had, therefore, additional reason for wishifii; to avoid a ewimlal.

Fo alisolnWv eonflictmir was the enVenrn and so utt<\rlv impossible of that the President of the court. forvent.lv oxprwsed a wish that, the gift of divination cnitld be for that occasion bestowed upon mm that hp 'iiio.ht be el°nv lo tho tniHi. However, after minrvinir judgment. he camp to the that o« tlw basis of circumstantial probabilities, the girl s story was substantial]? accurate m all flip roam points. and <bat thw v\r. no doubt that tlio pcr-on who found Hie monev for Hip lorai at n ladles' sdim! wa« Hie men who irnrrM her before 1:lin registrar. Instead, therc'ni-e. of ob'nininrr a of "pprnotual silimc--" nn.i.inst the jac+itator. Asc-ofr bad entered neninit himself a decree for the restitution of coniural rights.