EXTRAORDINARY BIGAMY CASE

Colonist, Volume XVI, Issue 1674, 3 October 1873, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY BIGAMY CASE

At the Central Criminal Court, London, on July 9, Reuben Allender Bersen, 30, was indicted for feloniously marrying Emily Sarah Boullon, his wife, Emily Gambier Eidd, being alive. Tte facts of the case, as proved in evidence, lay in a very small compass, the surrounding circumstances were of a most extraordinary character. The Rev. Jackson Smythe, Presbyterian minister at Armagh, said he knew the defendant in 1870 as Bersen Reuben Allender. He came to Armagh as assistant rangier in the Eoyal School. There was living at Armagh a Justice of the Pease named Joseph Eidd, and the prisoner was married to the daughter of that gentleman in 1871 by witness in his church. The Rev. A. Charles Price, Vicar of St. James', Clapham, proved that the prisoner in the name of Reuben Allenher Bersen, and Emily Sarah Boulton, the daughter of a retirednaval officer, were married by him on February 20, 1873. This was the case for the prosecution, and the jury without hesitation found the prisoner guilty. Mr. Poland said that as the prisoner had been convicted of the charge of felony he would not proceed with the indictment charging him with endeavoring to induce a young woman to commit perjury for the purpose of breaking down the bigamy case. Mr. Williams said he thought it right to give the court a brief history of the prisoner so far as it is known, and he must say that it unfolded a career of the most unmitigated profligacy. It appeared that he was an Austrian by birth, and that in 1869 he was assistant master at a college at Finohely, of which a gentleman named Cox was principal. The prisoner proposed to Miss Cox, but his antecedents coming to her father's knowledge he was sent away, and he went to Oxford. He stayed a short time there, and amongst his papers was a summons in bastardy for the maintenance of a child of which he was alleged to be the father; and his letters showed that he wag engaged to a girl named "Lizzte." In Oxford he proposed to marry a young lady of the name of Allen, and in 1870 he went to Armagh, and represented himself to be a person of numerous qualifications; and be (the learned counsel) wag bound to say that representation was correct. He formed a German class, which was attended by Miss Eidd, and he succeeded in inducing her to marry him. _He left her in June, after treating her most brutally, and went to Dublin, where he caused advertisements to be inserted in the Irish Times and other papers with a view to matrimony. The girl Morgan he seduced and left, after living' with her three weeks. He went to Gibraltar, and on his return he advertised in the Matrimonial News, and by that means he became acquainted with Miss Boulton, and married her in February, 1873. The prisoner represented that he was acquainted with General Frangini, and he arranged a meeting between. the general and Mr. Boulton. As the general could not speak English, and Mr. Boulton could not speak' Spanish, the prisoner acted as the interpreter, and he represented to General Frangini that he was obtaining with Miss Boulton a forturie of £800, and to Mr. Boulton that he had got the appointment of £800 a-year as principal,of the college in the Brazils. The learned counsel added that the prisoner took up. with a German lady and brought her to EDgland. Mr. Pulmer remarked that Providence, seemed to have deprived the prisoner of his understanding. With regard to the statements made by his learned friend, he said the girl Morgan voluntarily left her grandfather's house, and certainly Miss Boulton's conduct was at least indiscreet. Mr. Williams said the correspondence showed that he was engaged 'with thirty young women at the same time. His lordship sentenced him to five years' penal servitude.