Los Angeles herald., 1906-10-26
WIFE TOLLS As
HUSBAND SMOKES
COURT REFUSES WOMAN A
DIVORCE
Evidence Amuses Spectators When
Man Explains His Inability to
WorL-Eats Five Pork
Chops for Breakfast

Despite the fact that with tears In
her ewes and trembling in her voice
she told Judge Smith In department
one OF the superior court yesterday tnat
when she married her husband she
was compelled to buy him an extra
shirt SO that he might attend to his
duties while his one garm ent was in
the wash Mrs. Sarah Parry, an Eng
fish woman of Altadena, failed to Sc
cure an interlocutory decree OF divorce
from Thomas Parry because in the eyes
of the law she failed to prove non-sup-
port.
The couple were married In Derby
shire England, in 1891 Both are small
as to stature and their arguments ana
quarrels since coming to this country
have Interested their neighbors greatly.
According to the allegations of the
Yesterday she married under false
pretenses, believing her husband to be
a bachelor, when as, later circumstances
developed, he was a married man.
The woman told the court that
shortly after her marriage to Parry
she began to miss some of the money
she had saved, but that she later
learned that Parry had taken the
money to use in getting a divorce
from woman to whom he had pre-
Viously been married.
Throughout the trial while the scores
of allegations were being hurled at his
less silence and looked diminutive and
innocent.
When he spoke he entered gen.
eral denial in the most delightful COCK
ney accent and then proceeded to tell
a series of stories to illustrate his ex-
cuSes for not working.
Loves His Short Pipe
After the couple went to Altadena
to live Mrs. Parry took in washing for
a living, while her husband sat on the
front steps and smoked q pipe. Ac-
cording to the allegations of the wit
nesses and neighbors, Parry's chief
fault was that he did smoke pipe.
When his wife worked he smoked his
pipe, when she quarreled he smoked
the same pipe, when she finally kicked
him out Of the house and off the DOOR
pipe was clenched between his teeth
and he didn't even turn around, but
kept on going while his wife filed suit
for divorce.
When allegations were made In court
yesterday that Parry did not work, the
little gardener said he had been too i'll
to work, that the ravages of asthma
had nearly killed him. A relative of
the wife promptly took the stand and
testified that Parry could not have
been suffering to any great extent be-
cause she had been at the house one
morning when Parry had stopped his
pipe long enough to cook five pork
chops, all there was to eat in the house,
and ate them while his wife, who was
washing, was allowed to go hungry.
1t was then told that Parry had re-
fused to work at a good position Of
fered him as a gardener in the home of
a prominent attorney. He was Of
fered 81 per day to weed a lawn and
build small cobblestone retaining
wall,
Stones Were Too Heavy
zone day the attorney returned home
and found that the gardener had been
spending his time smoking his pipe
and planning out the job while the
weeds had grown about two feet and
the cobblestones were so big and
touched.
Parry, in defense, told the court that
the cobbe stones we're so big and
heavy that he could not carry them
and that he could not work at such a
job.
The attorney in question was then
called in and he testified that the big
gest cobblestone could not have
weighed more than six or seven pounds,
whereupon the little gardener looked
hurt and refused to offer any more tes-
timony.
The gardener failed to make any de-
fense, but the plaintiff also failed to
make a case and the decree was denied
and Parry left the court room, filed
his pipe and walked down the street as
though, cont tented with all the world.