Sad Marriage Experience

Southland Times, Issue 19553, 6 May 1905, Page 3 (Supplement)

Sad Marriage Experience

A 15-YEAR-OLD BRIDE.

ADELAIDE, April -14

“ A remarkable instance of how a woman will stick to a scoundrel.” was Mr Justice Gordon’s comment upon a case in which Jeannie L. Pitt, petitioned, for a divorce on the ground of misconduct, cruelty and desertion. Respondent was guilty of misconduct at the Semaphore in 1884, in Melbourne and other places in Victoria in 1892 and 1893, in New South Wales in 1894 and 1896, in Dunedin in 1897, and in Johannesburg in 1993 and 1904. About March, 1895, he deserted his wife and child, and had

not supported them since. Mrs Pitt was i only 15 years of age when married. A year or so after the wedding her. husband, who was a. commercial traveller, got into drunken habits. Ho was brutal to her on numerous occasions, and frequently misconducted himself with other women, but she forgave him over and over again. He said he was going to England, but it was doubtful whether he got there, as he was next heard of at ,J ohannesburg. Petitioner deposed that her husband struck her the night before her first child was born, and soon after threatened to cut her throat with a razor; She fled through a window, and found refuge in her step-mother’s house. When he went to hex’ at the Freemason’s hotel, which she kept in 1895, he asked her for a kiss.- She refused, and he said then,

Somebody must die ; either I’ll shoot you or I’ll shoot myself.” Mr Justice Gordon intimated that he would report the allegations proved.