The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1917-06-13
MRS. BELV|N GETS
HER CHILD BACK

Judge Wilson was engaged in a
very interesting hearing before him
last week, the matter being habeas
corpus proceeding brought by Mrs.
Belvin against her husband, Rev. w.
L. Belvin, a minister of the upper
South Carolina conference, for the
possession Of little Mary Elizabeth
Belvin, their three-year-old child.
There was large crowd of listeners
present, so many that the County
Court House was used.
1t appeared from the many affida-
Wits presented that Rev. Belvin was
on a charge at Walhalla and his wife
and four children lived with him un-
til recently, when his wife left home
and come to her former home in Lee
county bringing the three-year-old
girl with her. Her husband later came
to Sumter and went out to the place
where she was staying and peaceably
took the child and came to Sumter
and was about to take the train with
1T for Walhalla, when his wife and her
mother, Mrs. Hussey, came up and
tried to take the child from him. A
difficulty then ensued in which it was
claimed that he knocked his wife
down. This he denied, and claims that
he was attacked by his wife and her
mother together, who tried to double
team him, and that in the melee she
might have been showed down.
Mr.. Belvin drew pistol and was
arrested in Sumter. A great deal
concerning this affair has already ap-
peared in the Sumter papers and the
daily papers.
Mrs. Belvin brought the proceeding
to get the child back, and was repre-
sented by D. D. Noise Of Sumter and
lawyer Dagnal of Anderson, while
John H. Clifton Of Sumter represent
ed the preacher.
During the hearing and from the
affidavits which were read a great
deal of most unsavory nature came
out, and it would be out of the aues-
tion even if it were proper, to go into
details. The husband openly charged,
in affidavits, that the wife was un-
faithful, and that one of his brothers,
one Tillman H. Belvin, had invaded
the sanctity of his domestic house
hold and that this was the cause of
the whole trouble, submitting many
details and circumstances to prove his
contention. This his wife stonely de-
MED. 1t seemed from the affidavits
presented that there are several
brothers and sisters in the Belvin
family, who sided with the preacher,
except the one Tillman H. Belvin, who
was present in the hearing and took
sides with Mrs. Belvin.
After a long hearing in the matter
and much argument Judge Wilson
stated that it was an unfortunate case
and a painful one to hear, and the
duty of the court was to arrive at
what was for the best interest of the
child at the present time.
The court held that even if the
charges against the woman were true,
which he, of course, did not pass upon,
the child was too small now to know
anything about it, and that it would
be indeed bad and unnatural wo-
man who would not take care of her
child at that tender age, and for the
good of the innocent little girl he
would have to award it to its mother,
without prejudice to the fathers
rights to apply to the court for fur
ther orders at any time.
Sheriff Bradford of Sumter had the
child in court, a pretty and innocent
little creature, who won the admira-
ton and sympathy Of all who saw it.
Since all this happened and the
parties returned to Sumter, the Sum-
ter papers report that Rev. Belvin
was attacked by brother Of his wife,
and that outsiders had to interfere
to save him from receiving severe
injury.
O.