A WOMAN'S VICTIMS.

Thames Star, Volume VI, Issue 1804, 14 October 1874, Page 3

A WOMAN'S VICTIMS.

Some fragments in a history which, if given in full, might afford delectable food for reflection to tb.e moralist, or some spicy episodes to a writer of romance, are likley to enliven the proceedings of the Divorce Court in Melbourne in the course of a few days. The chief actor in the domestic drama is said to be the daughter of a physician, and who, not many years ago, was the happy wife of a prosperous commercial agent residing in the metropolis of this colony. By birth a Jewess, ■he* inherited the characteristic beauty, but unhappily, not the virtues of her race. (After a brief period of conjugal, felicity ? she removed with her husband to Ballarat. when it is alleged that her infidelity led to a,separation from her husband. She arrived in G-eelong accompanied by her two children, where for a time she led a fast life, patronising the establishment of a very dirty representative of her persuasion, and making her- debut on one occasion before the bench in male habiliments—the result of a moonlight masauerade in Moorabool street. After- this, ie took up a fashionable residence, ; where she assumedly established herself as a teacher of muaic—in which, as in other accomplishments, she was a proficient. Her character* however, becoming too conspicuous, she had /to retire from this abode to one of still - greater pretensions on the Eastern Beach. While there she had the good fortune to be introduced- by a .-.-familiar—friend of sporting and gambling proclivities, to one of the wealthy settlers who, since the passing of the Duffy Land Act, have accumulated extensive areas in some of the remote parts of the Western districts. TbAliiJterhad only just returned from a tour to England, and foregetting that he had a davoted wife and some stepchildren awaiting him in his country house, ho allowed himself to be fascinated by the bewitching Jewess. Apartments were taken in Latrobe Terrace, servants were employed, am eighty-guinea buggy was purchased, and during the winter or 187 d and a portion of the last summer the faithless man of acres with his fair but frail partner could be seen driving thenstately equipage behind a glossy roan through the streets of Geelong. .Of course the yoiing beauty had many admirers, including the man of gambling proclivities and a very attentive young man who was sometimes employed in the woodwork department of a coach factory. A period of rioting and feasting and carousing ensued, and in the course of little more than twelvemonths the Jewess and her followers the luckless j settler to squander botween £3000 and £4000. His estate gradually melted, and poverty coming in at the door love flew out at the window. He sued the gambler for money he had lent, and < quarrelled with the coachbuilder, who in a fit of remorse tried to cure his sorrows with a phial-of Greathead's remedy for diphtheria, from the effects of which he is likely to be a permanent invalid. Last of all, the settler's downward career has .-•almost reached its climax, for, stung to madnessbyhisconduct, andfindingthat he :whas almost beggared himself, his wife is about to apply for a divorce. In this she will beassistcd by an array of witnesses from -this neighborhood, someof whom, it is asserted, have participated in the folly of her lord,- who, it is understood, will offer no opposition to what, as regards , himself, is believed to be a very bad case. The lady (?) who figures so prominently in the discreditable social drama has, itig believed, within the past few weeks removed to Melbournc.—Geelong Advertiser. • /