The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1901-03-11
WILKINSON SUIT.
App location for Alimony and
Counsel Fee Made by
Mrs. Walter Wiki
inson Today.
SENSATIONAL TESTIMONY.
Doctor Names Five Co-respon-
dents In His Demand
for Divorce.

piled to Vice Chancellor Stevens TO-DAY
for alimony and counsel fees pending the
trial of the cause. Her counsel Mr. Will
! lard c. Fisk, made the application. which
| managed to stir up, from the DOCTOR
/ side, great amount of very sensational
1 matter.
1 1t will be recalled that in January the
doctor filed bill for divorce, alleging. in
ndelity on his wife's part and naming
these co-respondents:-Dr j. Coles Brick,
OF Philadelphia; Samuel Trumper George
9. Stevens, Clayton S. Goss of New York,
and w. H. Quick
In making the application for alimony
this morning, Mr.. Fisk presented affida-
Wits from Mrs. Wilkinson and each of the
correspondents denying any improper con-
duct on their part and all of the allega-
tions of the doctors bill. Mr. Fisk said
that Mrs Wilkinson was compelled to
leave her husband because he was ad-
dicted to use of morphine, and she was
Obliged to live on the charity of her sis
ter in New York city
The DOCTOR" continued Mr.. Fisk sis
in receipt of an income of s125 per month
from property left to him by his father,
and he has admitted to his wife that he
receives from his practice about $4,000 to
$1,000 a year. My client has no means to
support herself or pay for the defense to
this suit, to which she has a complete
answer
Ex-senator William Brinkerhoff, coun-
sci for DR.. Wilkinson, handed over
bundle of affidavits to the Vice Chancel-
lor, and argued that the wife was not
entitled to any alimony whatever, be-
cause she had not shown why she left
her home and her husband who had al
ways been kind to her and forgiving.
Why did she leave her home and for
sake her husband and child,' asked Mr..
Brinkerhoff. "She does not complain of
the comforts of her home, or the support
it afforded, or any cruelty of the hus-
band, but names as her only excuse, that
she could not longer live with her hus-
band because of morphine habit which
he has contracted and is a victim of, and
which made it impossible for her to live
with him under the same roof but why
it was impossible to live with him she
fails to recite, as also why she left her
only child to be cared for by the so-called
victim of morphine while she lived in
luxury in a New York apartment house,
Mr.. Brinkerhoff continuing, said that
Dr. Wilkinson was suffering from asthma,
which had afflicted him for many years,
and he was obliged by medical advice to
use the narcotic and also to seek occa-
sionalIy dried climates. Then said the
lawyer
when for the first time there was in
jected into his body this well-known and
recognized relief from suffering and pain,
it was a time when the defendant con-
fessed to him the greatest crime known
to the marriage state and now she ap-
pears in this court to complain of habit
resultant from and as sequence of
her own misdeeds. Admitting her state
ment to be true that he was addicted to
the use of morphine, what was the duty
of a faithful wife to the invalid husbando >
Was it to leave him? Was it to leave
her infant child to be reared up without
the love, influence and protection of a
mother while she sought a rowing life
with the companionship of other men?"
Continuing, Mr.. Brinkerhoff detailed
Mrs. Wilkinson's visit in July, 1900 to a
friend in Ohio, on which occasion the doc
tor made liberal provision, bought her
sleeping berth and railroad tickets and
bade her an affectionate adieu. When she
left her home on that day she kissed her
boy and never since then. She
remained, said the lawyer, in Ohio
until August 15 when, from Summit
n j.. she wrote to her husband that she
did not intend to return home. 1t was
his first intimation of that purpose.
WAS it not then that she changed her
purpose to return home because of some
circumstance and influence more urgent
and controlling than devotion to her child,
her husband, her home, or regard for
public opinion?' asked the lawyer.
Staring at us and confronting her are
letters written at Atlantic City, in the
months of May and June, and in New
York in June, where she had gone for the
purpose of a criminal operation upon her,
and in Sag Harbor in July as also the
letters written by her when in Columbus,
to the time she went to Summit. Letters
addressed My dear Fiji and written, as
she expresses it, while the weather was
as hot as hell, from your loving and de-
voted wife, Emma
Here are about twenty letters immeGi-
ately preceding and succeeding that
eventful July 15, do they indicate the loss
of respect for a husband, the intended
severence of home ties the denial of as
ISOLATION with and companionshlp of her
husband at their home? Was there not
some intervening cause about August Is,
which prompted her to seek the compali-
ionship of another, some love stronger
than that of a true wife.
If, on July 18th, she intended to look at
her child for the last time, without a
mothers honor, to leave a home provided
for her by husband, then the true char
acter of the woman is before US; her abb
sence from home at extravagant resorts,
daily trips to New York when not at
those resorts profanity at home and in
her correspondence, absence from home
ten days for a criminal operation with
out the knowledge or consent of her hus-
band, and while writing to him refusing
to heveal the place Of her crime. and he
compelled to employ a detective to as
certain her whereabouts.
III closing Mr.. Brinkerhoff insisted that
because of her conduct Mrs. Wilkinson
was not entitled to support
Tne Vice Chancellor laid the matter over
for one week, during which time an affi-
dayit will be submitted by Mr.. Brinker-
hoH on the question of Or. Wilkinson's )
income on the alinony question.