AFTER 40 YEARS

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10334, 4 September 1926, Page 5

AFTER 40 YEARS

A PATHETIC POSITION AUCKLAND DIVORCE ACTION. Electric Telegraph—Press Association AUCKLAND, Last Night. A pathetic divorce action based on habitual drunkenness on the part of the wife came before Mr Justice Herdman in the Supreme Court today, when Joseph Buckley, an elderly man afflicted with deafness, asked for the dissolution of his marriage which was contracted nearly 40 years ago. The respondent, Catherine Buckley, although she was in another room, did not appear in Court. Her counsel, Mr Sullivan, obtained leave to withdraw answers to the petition, making it an undefended action. The petitioner was a sorrowful figure in the witness box, and his story was drawn out more by questions of his counsel, Mr Singer, than by his monosyllabic answers.

The petitioner said that almost from the time his marriage was contracted on November 7, 1888, drink had obsessed his wife. Although there were six children of the marriage, the home was the scene of continuous outbursts of violence. His wife would break furniture and tear blankets, and only a few years ago smashed the door with an a£e. The respondent was arrested for drunkenness on different occasions, and once disappeared from home, and when traced with great difficulty was found to be living under an assumed name.

Mr Sullivan said the respondent admitted having taken to drink following a shock four years ago. She had not been drinking 511 through her married life.

Mr Singer said Buckley had brought the petition because he was “tired of the whole business.’’ Mr Sullivan: The petition is not defended, but it is right and proper I should mention that the wife has not been drinking for eight months past, ever since the petition was served. The decree nisi was granted.