THE BODGES HAVE A DIFFERENCE.

New York, 1895

Arrest of the Husband on a Charge of Abandonment.

Mrs. Elizabeth Bodge, the wife of John J. Bodge, of Dunton, has made complaint to Justice Hendrickson, of Jamaica, charging her husband with abandonment and non-support of herself and their child. Bodge was arraigned before the justice on Wednesday. Bodge claims that his wife is indolent, and that she is too intimate with one Mrs. Benemiller, a neighbor, who is objectionable to Mr. Bodge, his three daughters, and his friends. He says that after he remonstrated with Mrs. Bodge for keeping company with Mrs. Benemiller, she continued to go openly with her and drove about with her in a carriage. He insisted that she should not do it, and then she left him altogether, taking with her the child which was her's by a former marriage to a Mr. Watts. Mrs. Bodge claims that her husband had abused her and absolutely refused to support her any longer. The case was adjourned until July 3. Ex-District Attorney Fleming appeared for Mr. Bodge, and Counselor Stanford for Mrs. Bodge. The Bodges have only been married about a year and a half.

There appears to be no merit in the charge against Mr. Bodge. He seems to be a victim of persecution, and his arrest seems to have been caused to annoy and humiliate him. Mrs. Budge came to court in Mrs. Benemiller's carriage, dressed like a society belle. Mrs. Benemiller is the woman who was arrested some time ago for committing an assault on Colonel Crandall.

—The Long Island Farmer, Jamaica, NY, June 21, 1895, p. 1.

A Family Quarrel, Sudanese Style

1899

Family quarrels are always tragic for those concerned, but for outsiders they occasionally contain an element of comedy. This is certainly true of sundry families of the most primitive type. We quote a single instance from "Under the African Sun," by W. J. Ansorge, a medical officer in the British service.

Imam Abdalla Effendi, a Sudanese officer in command at Kibero, had seven wives and five children. I was sent to enforce a judicial decision in favor of one of his wives, who had lately been divorced and demanded her dowry back.

He at once told me how his undutiful wife, instead of serving him with dinner, had thrown it at his head, and how, under the great provocation, he had divorced the woman. I told him I had not come to hear an argument, but simply to enforce a sentence. As a specimen of what one has to put up with from the natives, I give a few sentences of what was said on the occasion.

I: You are to refund this woman her dowry.

He: Heaven knows I have done so already.

She: It's a lie! He has only given me eight yards of silk.

He: I call Heaven to witness. I have nothing. She: It's a lie! He has cows, goats and sheep. And so the squabble went on. I insisted. Imam trembled for his best cow, and finally I suggested five sheep as an appropriate amount, and told him that if he selected the worst in his flock the woman should have the cow. Frightened at this, Imam brought out five beautiful animals, and wiping the perspiration from his face, he entreated the woman to accept them and depart. This she was graciously pleased to do. — Youth's Companion.

Has "Postal Cardomania"

1909

Cincinnati Man Gives Reason for Slapping Wife; Court Releases Him

Cincinnati — William Schenck of Elwood place offered a novel excuse for slapping his wife when he faced Judge Hoffman in the police court Wednesday. He claimed that he was a victim of "postal cardomania," and charged his wife with sending them. He presented several cards to the court.

On one was written, "All in and down and out;" another showed a handsome young woman with outstretched arms, yawning. Underneath the picture was printed the words, "I do not care if he never comes back." Another had written on it, "Come in, the water is fine."

The wife claimed that Schenck had slapped and then punched her in the face while he was talking with her Sunday night. He was released.


1900

Sounded Like Age Hint

Mary Anderson Navarro attended a bazaar in England the other day in aid of a religious community and was told by the father rector that she was a mother to them. "Our Mary" is, of course, no longer in the full blush of youthful beauty, but this remark rather startled her for a moment. In the course of a short reply she good-humoredly said that the reverend gentleman might at least have called her a sister.

She Shot Him Just for Fun

1911

The Editor Muses

A St. Louis woman, asked why she shot her husband, said she did it "just for fun." And yet they say women have no sense of humor.

The agitation to make the upper berth lower continues; but no matter at what figure they fix the price it will still be high.

A St. Louis man made his wife cut his hair. Barbering, however, will never be included in any domestic science course.

There is a woman wireless operator. The old saw must be amended to read: "What man has done, a woman can and will do."

Fashionable women in the national capital climb the Washington monument to reduce their flesh. Thus does the uplift reach society.

A woman of ninety-one in Massachusetts wants to go up in a balloon. Another example of how people are as young in times as they want to be.

If a girl has a grown up brother she acquires a pretty fair knowledge of men without having to pass through the agonies of matrimony.

Whoso neglects learning in his youth, loses the past and is dead for the future. — Euripides.

Brutality Better Than Ardent Love, Asserts Wife

1920

Smothered by Kisses

SAN FRANCISCO, Cal. — How much should you love your wife?

This is the absorbing question brought up here by the divorce action of Mrs. Leigh M. Stewart, who sues her husband, Commander Stewart, because he loved her too much.

The divorce courts are cluttered with actions because "love has died." Now there comes the reverse — the newer and absorbing question for a judge to determine: Just how much should a man love his wife?

A modern cave man was Commander Stewart, according to his wife. A cave man with gentle human kindness, but overpowering in his love.

"His love for me was so overpowering, so terrible in its intensity, that it killed my own love for him. As I look back over the period of five years of our married life something tells me if he had loved me less I could have loved him more.

"He was never satisfied unless he had me in his arms, kissing me. He never seemed to be able to caress me enough.

"Then we married. It is easily imagined how he won me by this love, but later, incessant as it became, it tired me. I was never free from the very awfulness of his love.

"Life became hateful. Can you imagine sitting at a breakfast table with a man who wouldn't permit you to eat because of the time it took from kissing? At luncheon he would have thought up a new love poem, the kind he always returned with from a sea voyage, and I would have to listen to it. Then at dinner it was more kissing, kisses, kisses, kisses.

"Not so very long ago I tired so utterly of his kisses that I asked him to leave me alone for a moment. He flew into a rage and choked me. I thought then that he was going to kill me, and I can nearer at that moment to loving him than in any of the long years of our married life.

"His caresses were so tiring that brutality was welcome."

Mayor of Racine, Wis., Disclaims Wife's Baby

1920

Attacks Mate's Character in Reply to Her Divorce Action

RACINE, Wis. — William H. Armstrong, mayor of Racine, testified, in answering an action for divorce brought by Mrs. Armstrong, that he is not the father of a child born to her in September of last year.

He asserted he had denied the child from the day of its birth and that when a birth certificate had been sent to him he had crossed his name from it and sent it to Mrs. Armstrong by his 11-year-old daughter, Evelyn.

Denying cruelty charges brought by his wife, the mayor insisted she had never taken care of his home or properly prepared his meals and that the children were frequently ignored during a time when Mrs. Armstrong was out late at night day after day.

He said he had been made ridiculous by his wife's conduct in attending a masquerade party in tights, and that her constant falsehoods had made his home life unbearable.

Hubby's Knees Too Sharp

Pennsylvania, 1914

Woman Tells Court That as a Sleeper He Is a Bunch of Corners and a Menace

Pittsburgh, Pa. Feb. 7. — Culbert A. Killingsworth, apparently as well rounded a husband as ever crowded into a suit of pajamas, sat in a court room here and heard himself referred to as the equivalent of a bedful of stilettos. His wife, Evelyn, after suffering for years the stings and arrows of outrageous elbows, asked a divorce on the grounds that as a sleeper her husband is a menace.

"His knees were like sabers, your honor," said Mrs. Killingsworth, "and I can show that I am covered with bruises that are almost as bad as knife wounds. My husband is a sharp, keen business man in many ways, but as a sleeper he is nothing but a succession of corners. I would rather sleep with a buzz saw."

Judge Moore remarked that there was no necessity of exhibiting the bruises. Mrs. Killingsworth said that she might make other charges, but she felt faint.

Son Accuses Father of Eloping with Wife

1914

La Crosse, Wis., Jan. 2. — That Albert Rockwell, Nelson, Wis., eloped with his young daughter-in-law, deserting his own wife, is the assertion of his son, Bert Rockwell, who caused his arrest.

Rockwell was brought back from Spirit Lake, Idaho. Arraigned in the county court on a statutory charge he pleaded not guilty and was held to the circuit court for trial. His wife and son testified against him. The eloping father was traced to Idaho by a post card sent to Wisconsin relatives by his son's wife.

The son asserts that a year ago he decided to move to Nelson, Wis., from Minnesota. He went ahead to prepare the home, his father offering to help his young wife with the moving.

Young Rockwell telegraphed his wife and little girl to "come." They did not, neither did they answer. Then Rockwell received word from his mother that his father, wife and child had disappeared with $8,000 the elder Rockwells had saved.

Mrs. Rockwell, wife of the son, was not brought back from Idaho, her husband saying all he is after is revenge upon the father for breaking up two homes.

Lady Speaks to Him Only with Her Eyes

Indiana, 1916

But Interpreter Spins a Long Story from the Conversation.

Mrs. Joe Pogzelaski, of Hayden street, was called to the stand in the city court, Monday, to testify as to the conduct of her husband, who was drunk Sunday and creating a disturbance at home. Neither Joe nor Mrs. Joe could speak English and an interpreter was called.

Mr. Beklixyzski volunteered the use of both his English and Polish vocabularies.

"Ask him if he is guilty," said Judge H. Waveland Kerr to the interpreter.

"He says he will never do it again," volunteered the interpreter before the prisoner had a chance to say a word.

After some sparring between the court and the interpreter Judge Kerr asked for Mrs. Joe. She was sworn and sat gazing into the face of the interpreter. "Ask her if her husband struck her over the head with a beer bottle," instructed the court.

"She say they been married twenty-two year and never had no trouble and she want him to come home and he won't do it any more" — and a whole lot more, said the interpreter.

Mrs. Joe had said not a word. If she spoke it was with her eyes and she might have wig-wagged the message to the court through the interpreter, but there was reasonable doubt even of that. For five minutes Judge Kerr sought to find out whether Mr. Joe had assaulted Mrs. Joe. It was futile. The woman said nothing, whereas, the interpreter discharged conversation like a whole battery of phonographs.

Then Mr. Joe, Mrs. Joe and the interpreter got their heads together for a three-cornered talk-test, the upshot of which was a translation by the interpreter that Mr. Joe wanted very much to go home. Judge Kerr gave up in despair and continued the case until Tuesday, sending Mr. Joe to jail. When the police arrived at the Hayden street residence Sunday they found no end of beer, a bottle of whisky and broken bottles all over the house and in the street. Mrs. Joe had taken refuge across the street.

—The Fort Wayne Weekly Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, April 26, 1916, p. 4.

Hears From Daughter Who Was Kidnapped 12 Years Ago

1910

PITTSBURGH, Nov. 2. — A letter in the mail of Francis E. Fairman, a notary, with offices in the Frick building, deeply interested him, but when he reached the bottom of the first page he leaped from his chair and shouted "My daughter. Thank heaven I have heard from her at last — the first time in twelve years since she was kidnapped from me."

In a few days the kidnapped girl, Edith May Fairman, aged 19, now a trained nurse in Norwalk, Conn., will come here to live with her father and brother.

When Fairman recovered his composure he said:

"Twelve years ago I was a prosperous business man in Brooklyn, N. Y. One day I went home from my office to find my wife had disappeared. She was tired of me, she said in a letter several months later. A month after she left I went to St. Louis, where I stayed six months as an engineer in the employ of the United States army. Then I returned to Brooklyn.

"One evening several weeks afterward I returned home from my office to find that my daughter had disappeared. Several months later a letter, dated at a town in Nova Scotia, demanded $10,000 for her return home. I didn't have that amount of money, so I went to Nova Scotia to see if I could find my daughter. I made five trips before I found her.

"Trains run only once a week from the little town where I recovered my daughter and while we waited at a hotel I allowed her to attend school. The first day she went to school she didn't return to me, and I haven't seen her since."

—New Castle News, New Castle, PA, Nov. 2, 1910, p. 6.