The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-02-17 00:00:00

SINGULAR APPLICATION FOR A

JUDICIAL SEPARATION.
In the Probate and Divorce Court, before the Right
Hon. the President, the suit of "Latham v. Latham"
has been heard. It was a wife's suit for a judicial
separation, instituted after only 120 days of married
life, several of which were passed on sea during a
voyage from New York to this country. The peti-
tioner was Mrs. Catherine Latham, and the respondent
Itobert Nathaniel Latham, Mrs. Latham being an
English lady, and Mr. Latham a native of the United
States.

jr, Pritchard appeared for the petitioner; Mr.
Inderwick, Q.C., and Mr. Searle for the respondent.—
We take the following report of the case from The
Times.—

Mrs. Latham, in giving her evidence, stated that she
and the respondent were married in New York on the
28th of March, 1882, she being 30 and her husband 45
at the time of the marriage. He was a widower when
she met him, and by. profession he was a literary
man. After the marriage they went into lodging in
New York. From the first he showed himself to be
of a very jealous disposition, and quarrelled with
her on the utterly unfounded charge that when out
walking with him she looked at other gentlemen so as
to attract their attention. They left New York on the
27th of May, and reached this country on the 9th of
June. Subsequently they went to Boulogne and Paris,
and having come back again to London, she was
obliged to leave him on the 28th of July, and had not
lived with him since. During their cohabitation he,
among other acts, cut the hair on one side of her head,
and then told her she looked as if she had come out of
" quod." She used vaseline for her lips, and he rubbed
It over her face; he cut some of the hair off one of her
eyebrows, and soaped her hair. All this he did
against her will. He also banged her hat down on
her face and caused her lip to swell ; threw fish
and cold ham in her face ; he seized her by the
throat; he tore several articles of her clothing; he
more than once spat in her face; he threw a pillow at
her; on one occasion he smashed her ivory hairbrush,
and on another her ivory glove-stretchers; on more
than one occasion he wrenched off her wedding ring;
he called her foul names, and kept her without money,
so that from Paris she was obliged to send unpaid
letters to her relatives in London; in Paris he accused
her of being familiar in her conversation with a waiter
to whom she was only interpreting their orders for
dinner; and in London he took her against her will
to two mu.sic•halls ; he blew cigar smoke in her face.
In cross-examination by Mr. Searle, the witness
stated that she had smoked. On one occasion she
asked her husband for Bs. 6d. He refused it, but on
her mother entering the room, he
.handed her a
sovereign, which she threw, not at bun, but on the
floor. She denied that she used soap on her hair. At
Boulogne they agreed to let bygones be bygones. He
cut only a little of the hair off her eyebrow. If she
pointed out the loss of the hair it could have been
seen.

Mrs. Wilson, the mother of the petitioner, stated
that for three weeks her daughter and son-in-law
resided in her house. She saw him knock her
daughter's hat down on her face, which caused her
lip to swell. When witness remonstrated, he said he
would manage his wife in his own way, and that it
would take two years to bend her to his will. She
saw her daughter's torn clothes and heard Mr. Latham
call his wife foul names. Between Saptember, 1881,
and the time when she returned from Paris her
daughter lost two stone in weight and had become
careworn and unnerved. She much improved in
appearance after she left her husband.
An unmarried daughter and a servant of Mrs.
Wilson's corroborated much of that lady's evidence.
- -

Mr. Latham was examined by Mr. Searle, and said
that almost immediately after his marriage with the
petitioner he noticed her loose manners in attracting
the notice of gentlemen. He positively denied that
he ever threw fish at her, and as for the cold ham
which he was said to have thrown at her in Paris, they
had no such thing therP, for they only paid 10d, for
the two early breakfasts, and in. Paris restaurant
keepers did not give much for that money. His wife
used yastline for swollen lip, to which she was sub.
ject, and for her hair, and at her request he applied
some of it, and also at her request on board ship,
when, as he supposed, she had no vaeellne at hand, be

dressed her hair with soap. While doing so he must
have appeared like the dancing barber. He distinctly
deniedthat he ever had cut hair off her eyebrow or done
anything approaching to it, and it was untrue that he
had ever spat in her face. Once when saying " hush "
to her some crumbs from his mouth went on to her
face. He at once apologized and kissed her. He never
wrenched the wedding ring from her. Neither had be
banged down her hat over her face and caused her lip
to swell; but she struck him, and in doing so knocked
the hat off his head. As for blowing cigar-smoke in
her face, she smoked stronger cigars than he did. He
would have been happy with his wife only for her
mother. There was 'far too much mother-in-law "
in the business. She threw a pillow at him, and he in
play threw it back at her. He was very fond of his
wife, and since she left him he had done everything in
his power to get her back. He was even now quite
willing to live with her.

Cross-examined by Dr. Pritchard, the witness said
that he thought his wife and himself could live happily
together. The second year of married life was almost
invariably happier than the first. The wife got into
the husband's ways. He kept the money in Paris,
but he presumed she had small sums. He had smashed
the hair-brush and glove-stretcher, and destroyed
some of his wife's clothes in fits of jealousy, but he
had destroyed some of his own also. On the evening
he and his wife went to the two music-halls, he had
taken her to dinner at a restaurant. He did not get
drunk there, for he never was drunk in his life, but
his wife sat with her arms folded, and refused to enjoy
herself, and he was obliged to drink all to himself a
bottle of claret and a bottle of champagne, which by
his order had been placed on the table, and therefore
had too much to drink. She threw the sovereign at
him and not on the floor.

A servant in a house where the respondent and the
petitioner lived for two days before their separation
stated that they appeared to be very affectionate in
their manner towards each other.
The President, in giving judgment, said that Mrs.
Latham was now living apart from her husband, and
she came to have the sanction of the Court to that
course by a decree of judicial separation. It was
obvious that as the period of cohabitation had been
so short, the Court ought not to interfere unless it
appeared to him that a resumption of the cohabita-
tion would be dangerous to the life or the health of
the petitioner. Now he could not say that he was
quite satisfied of that. The respondent had, he must
say, given way to most unreasonable jealousy. He
hoped Mr. Latham would see for himself that he had
done great injustice to his wife, for whom he said he
had the greatest affection, and whom he was anxious
to take back, by thinking that she made endeavours to
attract the attention of other persons. He trusted
Mr. Latham would take from him that his conduct
had been very reprehensible, and would endeavour
to cure himself of what had been the cause of so
much unhappiness; but as the case stood the evi-
dence on which the Court would be justified in acting
fell very far short of any violence on the respondent's
part which would call for the intervention of the
Court. With the exception of that connected with
the incident about the hat, there was no corroboration
whatever. It was admitted by the petitioner that
she never made a complaint to anyone; but in cases
of this kind evidence that complaints were made to
somebody or other was commonly offered. The
petitioner had not been without opportunities of
complaining. Her sister was with her in Paris for
eight or nine days; and, though it had been urged
by her counsel that she had no opportunity of com-
plaining to her sister because her husband kept so
constantly with her, it was obvious that no Iwo
women, not to say no two sistsrs, could be together
for that space of time without occasions for free com•
munication offering themselves over and over again.
Then it was to beiborrie in mind that a reconciliation
occurred at Boulogne, and that the incident of the hat
was the only act of alleged violence after the re-
turn from France. Then as to the conduct of
the lady, he did not want to go into details ;
but had she on all occasions manifested that
kindliness which would promote good relations,
or had she sometimes acted in a way calculated
to induce bad feeling on the part of a husband? Now,
as to what had occurred with regard to the sovereign,
he did not mean to speak with severity, but he was
sure that the lady herself would see that what she did
on the occasion when the sovereign was thrown by her
was not likely to promote the happiness of her husband
and herself. Coming, then to the incident about the
hat, the lady said her husband banged her hat down
on her face; bit he, on the other hand, said she struck
him and sent his hat off his head to the other side of
the room. He would not enter more fully into the
occurrence further than to say that however the
matter might have been, he did not think he would
be justified upon that single act in decreeing a
judicial separation, and he must, therefore, dismiss
the petition.