CASUAL HUSBAND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 638, 15 April 1929, Page 11

CASUAL HUSBAND

LEFT WIFE DAY AFTER MARRIAGE

COURT GRANTS DIVORCE Richard Maxwell Clifton was a casual husband. He left his wife a day after their marriage, and though he would drift home for a week or two, he did not give her any money, nor did he tell her where he had been. At the Supreme Court, this morning, before Mr. Justice Blair, Mary Clifton (Mr. Finlay) petitioned for a divorce from Richard Maxwell Clifton, on the grounds of desertion. Married at Ohingaiti on August 17, 1908, her husband deserted her the following day, said petitioner. She was a widow with three children at the time of the marriage, and the bridegroom was out of work. She did not hear from him for three months after his first disappearance, when he came back and stayed with her “for a week or two,” she said. All he gave her was 10s. On January 27, 1909, petitioner laid a complaint against him in the Magistrate’s Court, and he was ordered to pay 15s a week, which order lie disobeyed. She went to Gisborne to live, and after a lapse of 12 months her husband appeared again and stayed for a week or two. but gave her no money. He did not tell her where he had been. He left her in May, 1910, and she had not seen him since nor had she received any money. Mr. Justice Blair granted a decree nisi, to be made absolute in three months.