WEIRD DIVORCE SUIT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143788, 11 May 1912, Page 5

WEIRD DIVORCE SUIT.

WOMAN’S IDEAS OF MOTHER HOOD.

A doctor’s wife, asking in the London Divorce Court for a judicial separation, complained that her husband, with a £SOO income from his practice, required her to act as a household drudge. The husband, it was shown, kept a servant and a groom. The jury in the end disagreed and were discharged. Counsel told the cdurt that the doctor’s infants were brought up to mock at Christianity, and their grandparents were shocked to find them crucifying dolls. Mrs. Mabel Adeline Hoole (nee Turner), residing with her parents at the Croft, Yardley, Birmingham, charged her husband, Dr.- John Hoole, of Bloomfield, Panvich, Derbyshire, with cruelty, which ho denied.

The marriage took place when the petitioner was 28 and the respondent 48. In August of 1904, said counsel, the husband did a most extraordinary thing. He suddenly called his wife a liar and a treacherous beast, and a number of other names, and seized the child, then only nine months old, and hid it with a sister-in-law at Holmwood, Surrey, Mrs. Hoole, however, went in search of the child, discovered it, and went back to her parents’ home. More than once when the husband struck at one of the children the wife received the blow in protecting it. In April last, when her little boy had a broken leg, Mrs. Hoole had to sit up with him all night, while her husband enjoyed his cigar and wine. After that she left the house, taking her two children with her. NEVER TAUGHT RELIGION. Counsel went on to say that, for what conceivable reason he could not teU, the infants were brought up by their fattier to mock at Christianity. On the walls of the lavatory the doctor drew a comic picture of the Crucifixion, and when the children were at their grandparents’ the latter were horrified to discover the little ones playing at crucifying dolls. Mrs. Hoole, who was greatly distressed on entering the witness-box, said, that at first, during her married life, sho was in the habit of saying her prayers. But she ceased doing eo because her husband always made fnn of such things ns religion and belief. Asked about her husband’s sketch of the Crucifixion the witness said that it was very well 1 drawn. The President: Was it a caricature? —No ;it was a mock picture. Asked whether since her marriage her health had not broken down, Mrs. Hoole replied. “Well, I know I am alive because my heart is beating: that is all.”

Cross-examined, she admitted that «he had been subject to fits of depression and silence—to “black fits.” She bad never been, she said, as gay or thoughtless as other women, adding, “It is such a sad world.” In a letter which she wrote she referred to the misery her parents had been to her since she was 18. She did not tench her children Christianity, because her husband would have made fun of it. SYMPATHY WITH SUFFRAGETTES. Answering the President, the witness said she never read Bible stories to her children. I believe_ you yourself have pronounced socialistic views, have you not, and are a believer in Ibsen ?—I have read Ibsen. I am' a socialist. And once or twice, no doubt, you have expressed your views on the woman suffrage question?—Yes; I have said that I thought they were very brave. They have your active sympathy?— Ob, no.—(Laughter.) Counsel: I don’t mean'active in the way of breaking windows..—(Laughter.) The Witness: I hare said that I thought they were working in a just cause. The witness added that Ibsen was no fx-iend of hers; she read him as she would Herbert Spencer- or anybody else.

The President: I see you wrote in a letter: “Somebody has .just told me that Herbert Spencer has died. I am sorry that all the brainy people are disappearing.”— (Laughter.) Counsel read an extract from another letter the lady had written saying: “It is very selfish, and if I believed in Satan I should believe he gets hold of me at times.” The President: Do you believe in

Satan?—No; X do not. The President: Well, that is very comforting.—(Laughter.) Counsel read a letter written by Mrs. Hoole in support of his suggestion that she had held certain viewo in regard to the position of a mother bearing children. The letter said ; Mrs. J ’s new baby is a girl. One more little mortal born into the world afidieted with a mother. I wonder why Nature made the mistake of' providing living things with parents! It would have been so much better if Nature had followed the rule of the Phoenix, where one dies as the next is born. Now it is the Robin Redbreast which amends this unfortunate error. The President: What is the Robin Redbreast, theory?-■ Counsel; That the young ones peck the old ones to death. A sister of the petitioner said that '.heir father was formerly a professional finger. He did not now run the Turner .Opera Company. “It is my brother’s,” said witness. Her father was formerly proprietor of the Grand Theatre, Birmingham. Dr. Hoole. in the box, referring to the sketching of the Crucifixion, said that one’day the little boy was trying to draw a rabbit. The witness said, “Have you said your prayers this morning?” He said, “What are prayers, pap?” Witness said, “Yon pray to Chr'st, a good man who died for little boys and girl?; they crucified Him.” The boy asked what “crucified” was, and the wit”?v took the pencil from his hand and sketched the Crucifixion. He den’ed all the allegations of cruelty either to woman or child.