PECULIAR DIVORCE CASE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3303, 23 August 1911, Page 9

PECULIAR DIVORCE CASE.

, A HUSBAND’S PETITION. ONE-TIME ORMOND RESIDENTS. [SPECIAL to TIMES.! AUCKLAND, August 22. In the Divorce Court this morning an elderly man named John Fitzell, a farmer of Papatoetoe, was the principal party in the application for a decree from Jane Elizabeth Fitzell, with Arthur Wm, Yates as co-respondent. The parties were married in Gisborne in 1885, and resided at Ormond, near Gisborne, for 14 years. Four children remained of the union. Whilst at Ormond petitioner made oyer his property to his wife in case anything happened to him, and in 1890 respondent told petitioner to “clear out.” Petitioner consulted a clergyman, and was advised- to go back to his wife, which he did. His wife declined to have anything to do with him, and lived with a neighbor named William Love. Petitioner left, and went to Napier to work on the railway, and respondent asked for maintenance for the children, out petitioner refused this, and the children were sent td him on his application! About two years later petitioner’s wife came to Napier and brought another child. She said she had left Love and would behave herself, and petitioner took her back. Respondent had sold all the property at Ormond, and she and Love had squandered it. Petitioner and respondent then lived together for about a month, and then respondent returned to her lover in Qisborne, and later took possession of all the children. Until the children were of age petitioner sent half his wages regularly to the respondent. . Eight years ago petitioner secured a piece of land at Te Awamutu, and sold this to advantage, and started farming ax Papatoetoe. He tried t>y get possession of the children, but failed, and in June last he was arrested for wife desertion, and remanded. The wife never turned up at Court, and petitioner was released. Respondent was living at Auckland then with a man named Yates, and had two other children registered as the children of co-resopnd-ent. A decree nisi was granted, to be made absolute in three months. No costs were allowed, his Honor saying that a man who left his wife to drift in the outer world for anyone to pick up could not complain when she was picked up. He would get no costs from co-respondent.