The San Francisco call., 1896-10-07
CHAFES UNDER
EDITORIAL RULE
William N. Nelson's Wife
Insists Upon a
Divorce.
Says He Threatened Her With
His Control of the News
Letter.
CRUELTY IS THE GROUNDS.
A Complaint Bristling With Charges
Involving the Conduct of the
Well.Known Attorney.

Through her attorney, P. B. Nagle, Mrs.
Nancy Nelson has brought suit for di-
vorce from her husband, William N. Nell
son, on the ground of extreme cruelty.
The petitioner was a Miss Mcfarland
before she welded the defendant, in 1894.
He is one of the characters that go to
make the history of the State. He was,
if ne is not to-day, brilliant writer. His
line was that of deep study and serious
ness, and twenty years ago when Fred
erick Marriott pere took him up he was a
power
1t was he who first discovered that Miss
Hill-Sarah Althea-as she was subse-
quentIy called, had a grievance against
the late Senator Sharon. He induced her
20 bring suit for divorce from the multi
millionaire, and during the first stages OF
the case he was her adviser and friend.
Subsequently they quarreled, the young
woman making all sorts of accusations
against him of selling her out and deliv-
ering to Sharon documents which could es-
tablish her right to call herself his wife.
These charges were not substantlated.
Out of this suit grew others innumer-
able in which Nelson and his employers
were always the defendants, suits that
were the outcome of his fierce attacks
through the papers in which he wrote
against the people on the other side.
These suits, continued Indefinitely IN the
lower criminal courts, have never come to
a consummation, having been dropped
from the Gale ndar.
The cruelties to which the petitioner,
according to the complaint, was being
subjected were of an unspeakable nature
physically. She says that he refused her
food, so as TO indulge his appetite for
strong drink and laudanum; drove her
from a sick bed to make her wait upon
him, and while she could hardly place one
foot before another compelled her to clim b
a steep, two-miIe grade, packing an i'm
mense bundle. In the latter case he
tramped on ahead and gained place OF
rest, where he lay down to enjoy his COM
forts, and made her wait upon him as a
slave. These were the physical injuries
inflicted. As regards to the moral ones
they take in a wider scope. Curses and
words degrading for any woman's ears to
hear were heaped upon her.
The defendant, If appears from the COM
plant, also made threats that were most
disquieting. When the plaintiff could no
longer support him he caused her to bor-
row money from her relatives to do so.
When she could no longer borrow and he
would not help IN the maintenance of
"
her sister. They lived there until, says
the complaint, ''his drunken and lauda-
num- 5efogged condition melted him to be
vulgar and besstly in his way of eating
and rough and uneouth in his language
to his benefactors.
Then, the wife says, he, being threat
ened with expulsion, declared in return
that he was in control of the Newsletter,
a weekly publication in this City, and
that if the plaintiff or her sister refused to
care for him he would eat at the free.
lunch counters of the saloons in this City,
"a fit place for any gentleman to eat," and
that he would wreck his wife and her
friends with the articles he would write
against them.
He would do more than that, according
TO one of the allegations in the complaint,
which reads:
He proposed to court favor by the use of the
Newsletter by vilifying Protestant ministers
and teachers for the purpose of getting into
the good grace OF Father YorKe and the
Roman Catholic Church, so that they would
take care of him the remainder of his days
that they were always glad TO make converts
of superior men like him and that were it not
for the ineumbrance OF this plaintiff he could
be priest.
The petition was filed before Superior
Court JUDGE Slack, who assigned the case
to Judge Daingerfield.
The latter immediately issued an order
restraining the defendant from commit
ting the threatening actions complained
of and compelling him to show cause on
the 10Th inst. why an order should not be
made condemning him to pay plaintiff $6t
per month alimony and $3.50 attorney:
fees.
Fred Marriott, proprietor of the News
Letter and the employer of the defendant
was also included in the restraining order
against any transfer of debts or credit O.
the defendant