THE DACRE CASE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2647, 7 December 1904, Page 39

THE DACRE CASE.

— R. Murrell, photo

A little romance, -which (says the London correspondent of the Meltourne Argus) commenced in Melbourne last winter has engaged the attention of the English law courts for some time. A young widow, living in Victoria parade, and supporting herself by teaching

music and painting, inserted a matrimonial advertisement in The Argus, and as a result made the acquaintance of a tall, rather distinguished young man named Ernest John Dacre, who proposed marriage. He admitted he was then only a working photographer, but he declared he received remittances from an estate in England, that his father was a general, his mother a lady of large property in Gloucester and that there was a title — Baron Dacre — in the family, from which he was only

two removes, and other fascinating yarns of the same description. The lady declared in court that she married him, lent him nearly £170 to pay their passages to England, and allowed him to remit the rest of her money — £325 — to London, her other property, worth .£3OO, being sent on by cargo ship. On reaching London he left her, and she had, after a time, communicated with Scotland Yard. She, however, accidentally met her husband in Oxford street, and detained him until the

police arrived, when a number of bank notes were found upon him, received in exchange for tho JE325 draft. On Dacre expressing his willingness to make over the balance of the money by deed to hia wife, and also her other property, the jury, by direction of the Common Sergeant, found a verdict of " Not guilty." The Common Sergeant expressed the opinion that under the common law prevailing at the time of the settlement of Victoria the money of the wife was the money of the husband.

There was no evidence that the Married Women's Property Act of England had been made effective in Victoria, therefore the presumption was that the common law prevailed. Mr Alfred Dobson, the acting Agent-general, has since pointed oarfc that special legislation. as to married women's property existed in Victoria ever since 1870, and had been consolidated* and amended in IS9O, long before Mr and Mrs. Dacre were married, so that Mrs Dacre was. entitled to hoid her property as femme sole.

Mrs Pearson, seen in the foreground, is an old identity of the district and has Jived in this cottage since 1857. The large tree is a blue gum, which grew from a seed planted by Mrs Pearson 45 years ago.