COUNT GEOFFREY’S WIFE

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 143, 7 September 1927, Page 16

COUNT GEOFFREY’S WIFE

A REAL-LIFE STORY POETS BADLY TREATED (Special to TIIE SUN.; CHRISTCHURCH, Tuesday. Geoffrey Wladislos Vaile Potocki De Montalk is, according to himself, a Polish count. He is also a poet, and has been a milkman and a law clerk, but he has evidently not been a. model husband. In the Supreme Court to-day before Mr. Justice Adams he was petitioned against for restitution of conjugal rights by his wife, Ada Lilian de Montalk. Petitioner, for whom Mr. J. B. Batchelor appeared, stated that after her marriage she lived in Auckland with her husband, where he had a milk round. He compromised with his creditors and as a result she lost £I,OOO of her own monejt Later they came to Christchurch and lived at Merivale. and afterwards at Hoon Hay, where de Montalk said that he intended to build a house. For a time they lived in a garage on the property, but he made no attempt to go ahead with the house. Since then he had not maintained her. She went to see the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Women and Children, whereupon de Montalk informed her that he was going away, and did so in his motor-car. She received two letters, produced, In one of which he referred to her as the Countess de Montalk. She was still anxious that her husband should return to her. There was one child of the marriage, a girl. In one of his letters Count Geoffrey expressed his opinion of the Dominion n the following terms: “Poets are as badly treated in this land of white savages and All Blacks as they are feted, laurelled, and crowned in Merrie England.”

In another letter he stated that he •vas leaving for Samarkand. An order was made in terms of the petition.