BRIDE FROM ENGLAND

Taranaki Daily News, 23 July 1929, Page 11

BRIDE FROM ENGLAND

SHORT STAY IN DOMINION.

A wife from England, who was said to have taken a strong dislike to New Zealand and refused to stay here, was the respondent in a petition for reMuu tion of conjugal rights heard in the Supreme Court, Auckland, before AL. Justice Kennedy. The petitioner was John Victor McManus (Mr. who married the respondent, Elsie Geoigina McManus, in England in October, 1925. . ' , . „ Petitioner said that his wife and lie came to live in Auckland in January, 1926. He went to the hydro-electric works at Arapuni, whence he was on the staff, while his wife remained in Auckland. At the request of the people with whom she was staying he came to Auckland and took her back to Arapuni with him. There was no accommodation for married women there, and it made things very awkward. As a matter of fact it cost him his job. “My wife was in a most extraordinary folate,” said witness. “She conceived an aversion to New Zealand generally, and her great ambitions seemed to be to leave it.” She made some attempts to get a position as a stewardess on a boat, «ut was not successful. She had not used letters of introduction to people in New Zealand. She left him in June, 1926, and not a tall amenable to reason.. He saw her name in the passenger-list of a steamer leaving for Sydney in 1927, and she wrote from Sydney saying that , she was quite happy and had not .intentions of returning. 'She did not reply when he wrote a second time asking her to return. His Honour: You have not proved the .Bonding of a written demand. Counsel: I am prepared to go into the witness-box and prove it myself. His Honour: I am not asking what you are prepared to do. Your case is insufficient as it stands. ’ Mr. Kavanagh again offered to go into the witness-box, but His Honour said that it wasTiot desirable that counsel should do so. “They should intelligently anticipate these contingencies,” be added. However, Mr. Kavanagh was granted permission to give evidence, and stated that he met petitioner’s wife in Sydney Hast August and handed her a letter from her husband. After she had read it, film said: “There is no chance in the wide world of my returning to John. I do not like New Zealand. Ido not like him. You can do what you like. I am not going to take any further part in it.” '

His Honour issued a decree for respondent to return to petitioner within SO days of service.