GETTING RID OF WIFE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 71, Issue 276, 21 November 1928, Page 5

GETTING RID OF WIFE

A SIGNED AGREEMENT HUSBAND’S BIG FORTUNE. How a man who was said to have inherited £60,000 got rid of his wife for £127 was related to Mr Hay Halkett, the magistrate, at Marylebone Police Court in London recently. Under an agreement which the wife signed her husband paid £127 for her passage to Canada—where she went with the idea of earning her own living—and to provide her with an outfit. The magistrate held that this deed was valid and a bar to the success of the summons brought by the wife against her husband for not providing her with reasonable maintenance. In announcing his decision Air Halkett said: “He has a wife whom he is liable to maintain and he. gets rid of her for £127. As a cheap way of getting rid of a wife I have never seen anything to equal it in all my cxperienc .” The plaintiff was Lily Burton and the defendant Henry Theodore Burton, both of Maida»vale. Airs Burton said that she was married to the defendant in 1911, In J 925, as her husband could not get a position, she agreed to his going to live ■with his mother, while she went to Canada to earn her own living. She signed an agreement in which her husband agreed to pay her passage and provide her with a proper outfit. Altogether, he paid her £127 For 15 months 5 she maintained herself, and then, owing to jll-hcalth, had to return ana asked for her husband’s assistance. His mother had died, and ho had inherited £60,000. He refused to help her, and said that if she worried him he would shoot her and tic up his money.

Counsel for the husband contended that the agreement that the wife signed was a complete bar to the present proceedings. The husband had paid £127 in consideration of freedom from any future claim by the wife. The wife had capitalised her maintenance. The wife’s counsel argued that there was nothing about maintenance in the agreement. The husband simply paid his wife’s expenses in order that she. might endeavour to support herself while in Canada. She tried, and failed. Did it mean that because the wife failed and returned destitute after fifteen months, that the husband, by the terms of the deed, was absolved from his common law liability to maintain her?

Air Hay Halket t said that £.127 did I seem a very small sum for a man -in the position to pay to get rid of his wife, and, but for the case of Medway and Alcdway, in which a man got rid of his wife for £2O, he should have been inclined to decide against the husband -without any hesitation. It seemed to him that this deed was a valid one, extraordinary as it was, and it seemed to be a complete bar to the wife applying for the present order. The summons would therefore be dismissed. The magistrate pointed out, however, that the moment the wife vecamc chargeable to the guardians a very serious position w’ould arise. Counsel agreed, and the magistrate suggested that, if the husband was in a position to do so, he ought to make some arrangement for his wife.