SHORT=LIVED ROMANCE

Taranaki Daily News, 6 June 1930, Page 8

SHORT=LIVED ROMANCE

MAORI’S SECRET WEDDING COUPLE WHO RAN AWAY TO SYDNEY YOUNG HUSBAND FACES COURT. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Gisborne, Last Night. Six weeks ago a girl aged fifteen years and ten months was missing from her home near Gisborne and the police were informed. It was subsequently ascertained that she had secretly married . a youth aged seventeen years and two months. and the couple had left on a honeymoon to Sydney. Arriving there, they were soon in financial difficulties, and fares had to be sent by their parents to bring them back. The sequel ' came in the Magistrate’s Court tq-day, before Mr. Harper, S.M., when the youth, whose .name was ordered to be suppressed, was charged with making a false declaration on a marriage certi-. ficate, in which he gave his ag.e as 22 and the girl’s age as 21. Amongst the witnesses was the girl’s father, who gave evidence thai accused had objected to witness’ daughter being a waitress and said he would have to marry the girl and take her out of it. When told by the girl’s grandmother that he would have-to wait till the girl was 21 years of age accused said he was afraid he could not do so. "Witness had told accused he would not allow his daughter to be married till she was 21 years of age. In cross-examination witness admitted that his daughter had told him that accused >nd henself had never lived as man and wife, and witness admitted that the boy had done no harm to the girl. Accused pleaded'guilty and was committed to the Supreme Court for sentence.