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inn, went, by his direction, to stay with a friend, he saying he would join her next day, she having no notion that he did not intend returning home. He did not come; and after remaining a fortnight, she returned to Birkenhead, where she found an execution had been put in. She wrote several letters to him, which he did not answer, and the furniture was sold under the execution. She then went into lodgings at the expense of her friends, and in February two persons went to Birmingham, where the respondent then was, and endeavoured to induce him to return, but he refused to do so; and in May she took a situation as a governess, not having seen or received anything from him since 1843. In the same month of May, he wrote to the petitioner vaguely intimating that she might rejoin him, to which she replied that “when he could place her in as good a position as she could keep herself in by her own industry, it would be time enough to talk about doing so." In 1848, he wrote to her, bidding her "farewell for ever," it was held that there was a desertion from the first; and, as he made no definite offer to provide another home for her, and did not so provide one, she was entitled to a decree, Cudlipp v. Cudlipp, 27 L. J., P. & M. 65.

Where the respondent had been charged by his wife before a magistrate with assaulting her, and was bound over to keep the peace towards her,

and thereupon immediately left her without money, and she was quite willing that he should go, the Court did not feel quite clear that the charge of desertion had been established, Ward v. Ward, 27 L. J., P. & M. 63.

Where the husband, having failed in business, sent his wife and children to her father's house, and went up to London to seek employment, whence he wrote two letters in affectionate terms, expressing his hope of soon being able to support her and her children, as he also did in an interview he had with her; and about a month later he wrote again, complaining of her not answering his former letter, and telling her she was in duty bound to let him know how his children were, which she also left unanswered. He wrote a fourth-rather an angry one-saying that if she did not answer it she would not hear from him any more, which she also left unanswerd. He did not see her for eight years, when he saw her, said he had money, and should come for her next day, but did not do so. In answer to the Court, she said she did not answer the letters because her father would have opposed it; and it appeared that he did not wish that she should have further communication with her husband. It was held that having in the first instance necessarily absented himself for the sake of employment, he did not then desert her, and that considering his wife's conduct, his subsequent absence

could not be regarded as desertion within the meaning of the statute, Thompson v. Thompson, 27 L. J., P. & M. 65.

When the husband, a minor, clandestinely married his wife, and a few days after was removed by his friends to the continent, and subsequently to India, leaving her penniless, this abandonment was held to be no defence in a suit by him against her by reason of adultery, Morgan v. Morgan, 1 No. Ca. 32. And Dr. Lushington there said that, according to his own MS. notes in Reeves v. Reeves. Sir J. Nicholl had distinctly held that even wilful desertion was no defence. See also Sullivan v. Sullivan.

But now, even in case the Court shall be satisfied on the evidence that the case of the petitioner has been proved, still it is not bound to pronounce such decree if it shall find that the petitioner has during the marriage been guilty of adultery; or if the petitioner shall, in the opinion of the Court, have been guilty of unreasonable delay in presenting or prosecuting such petition, or of cruelty towards the other party to the marriage, or of having deserted or wilfully separated himself or herself from the other party before the adultery complained of, and without reasonable excuse, or of such wilful neglect or misconduct as has conduced to the adultery, 20 & 21 Vict. c. 85, s. 31, Coulthart v. Coulthart, 28 L. J. 21; and "wilful misconduct"

must be taken to be such misconduct after marriage, Allen v. Allen and D'Arcy, 28 L. J., P. & M. 81.

Where the petitioner, aged sixteen, married a man of thirty-six clandestinely, and was immediately after the marriage separated from him by her friends, and had never cohabited with, or seen him since, the Court held that, she having been entrapped into the marriage, even if she had been married by license obtained on her oath, as she might have done this, under the influence of her husband, had not "wilfully deserted" him, and decreed a dissolution on the grounds proved.-Du Terreaux v. Du Terreaux 28 L. J., P. & M. 95.

In answer to a defence of desertion without provocation on her part, set up by the wife in a suit for divorce by reason of adultery, promoted by the husband, he may fairly set up antènuptial misconduct on her part, discovered subsequently to their marriage in his justification, Perrin v. Perrin, 1 Add. 4.

The desertion must be clearly proved to be against the will of the wife, Smith v. Smith, 28 L. J., P. & M. 27.

Where the petitioner, being a clerk in the Post Office, was married in 1849 and in 1850 was convicted of stealing a letter, and sentenced to ten years' transportation, and, although he could not supply his wife with money, he for two years kept

up an affectionate correspondence with her In 1853 she formed a criminal intimacy with the corespondent, with whom she afterwards lived in concubinage. On his liberation, and the passing of the Divorce Act, he filed his petition for a dissolution of marriage. It was held that,—although this adultery would never have been committed but for the petitioner's misconduct, yet, although a sine qua non, this not being a causa causaus, and the misconduct being neither directly or indirectly contemplated by the husband as likely somehow to contribute to his dishonour, it had not "conduced" to the adultery within the 20 & 21 Vict. c. 85, s. 31, and per Cresswell, J. O., that the wilful neglect or misconduct must mean neglect of the wife in the strictest sense; and so misconduct towards her must mean towards her personally, and not merely misconduct towards society indirectly affecting her, Cunnington v. Cunnington and Noble, 34 L. T. 46.

DISSOLUTION OF MARRIAGE.

Where the wife petitions for a decree of dissolution of marriage on the ground of "bigamy with adultery," under 20 & 21 Vict c. 85, s. 27. Semble, per Pollock, C. B., that "bigamy with adultery," in that section, means adultery with the person with whom the bigamy is committed;

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