Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1883-06-14
MELVILLE TELLS HI, STORY.

TIE Je0nHette Engineer Speaks i'm His f},,o
Defcnsc-Why He REFUSED to lire WIN
His Wfe-Hjs Family not Deserfed- TN p
-dUo'cGMces Made for Their sUpport-En-
tFacdGGRce Charged.
Chief Engineer George W. Melville has
so many personal friends that he has deem
ed it necessary to publicly reply to GER
| tain charges recently made by the Herald.
His letter, dated from the United States
| navy yard. League Island, says:
Heretofore [ have avoided answering
all attacks on my name and reputation.
supposing that the courts alone would
settle the question of family discord. Your
| paper with others, without cause, apparent
| ly in ignorance, has attempted to hound
me down, charging all sorts of rascality
and meanness, when the evidence before
| the court showed that the head and front
of my offending consisted in being a sea-
| faring man who would not live with a
drinking woman.
"Your main charge tissue of May 3O)
that Engineer Melville's wife has been liv-
on the charity of her friends: 1t is GER
tainly strange that you should publish q
statement of that kind in the face of the
! order of the court which allotted $40 per
month and which has always been paid
1t seems SO singular to me that the press
| of the United States should so pervert the
facts, and charge me with desertion of my
family, when it is well known that 1 pro
vided comfortable house, and left an
allotment of $50 per month for the time
l was absent, and when my pay was in
creased upon my promotion, the then
Secretary of the navy (Mr. Hunt, with
out my counsel, allowed this woman $40
per month for thirteen months, until Mr..
| Chandler was made secretary, when he,
complying with the law, reduced the
amount to the original allotment of $50
| per month, which in time confirmed,
and continued paying that sum up to the
| time of the order of the court, which al
| lowed her $40 per month for the support
of herself and two youngest children.
| During my absence of three years and five
months she had house to live in, and in
that time drew of my earnings $4,440, be-
| sides running NE in debt to the amount of
J $4,000, for which the household goods were
! seized and sold by the sheriff, and upon my
arrival at what should have been my home
l was ushered into the presence of q
drunken maniac who had polluted my
name that had never before borne stain.
Because l would not live with such wo-
man and condone all of her untold nasti-
ness Of the previous years, l am charged
with desertion anda followed up by your
paper by statement that 4 am seen on the
streets not always in good company This
charge may mean great deal or it may
mean nothing. ! may frequently be seen
on the streets when [ have reason to 90
! there. There is no reason WHY Melville
should stink through the slums and back
alleys of this city. He always stands out
in open day and is never seen in company
with persons that he would be ashamed to
be found dead with, Or any whose character
would bring blush of shame to the cheeks
of his mother, we're she living.
During the trial of the case at Media
this womap's attorneys ventilated my char
acter from the time l was schoolboy in
New York city, then raked Philadelp hia
from the Delaware to the SchuykilI, from
| Southwark 10 Richmond, without finding
one blemish to smirch my personal char
acter. The great and only fault p is,
did 60 to sea eighteen years out of twenty
two TO avoid hell on shore, and that
would not condone the faults of a drunker
woman.
AN insertion OF this in your paper may
to q slight degree counterfeit the sIanderou:
statements that have been going tho rounds
of the public press.
u am, sir, very respectfully, etc,
GEORGE w. MELVILLE,
"Ceief Eupiner T. s N"