Tiger v. Tiger

BACKES, V. C.

Petition for divorce between Maud Apgar Tiger and Ernest W. Tiger. On exceptions to master's report denying decree. Exceptions sustained, and decree of divorce advised.

Charlton A. Reed, of Morristown, for petitioner.

BACKES, V. C. The petition in this cause is for a divorce on the ground of adultery. The master to whom it was referred reported that the charge was not proved, and advised a decree of dismissal. My conclusions, after a careful examination of the testimony, are not in accord with the master's findings.

The parties were married in 1905, and lived together, sometimes in Morristown and sometimes in Dover, until February 24, 1914, when the defendant disappeared. Up until six or seven months before his disappearance, he apparently lived happily with his wife. At that time another woman came into his life, and thereafter his former conduct and treatment of his wife underwent an observably pronounced change—from marked attention and affection to indifference, neglect, and finally abandonment. The "other" woman was a nursemaid in a household in Morristown. Daily she frequented the post office at Morristown, where the defendant was employed as superintendent of mails, holding long and absorbing conversations with him at the delivery window. They also conversed often over the telephone, and their intimacy became the gossip and sport of the other clerks. He sent her flowers, telephoned her from other places in Morristown, and at nighttimes was her companion. Upon one occasion she, accompanied by her two charges, seven and nine years of age, were in his unoccupied but furnished house about 5 o'clock of a winter's afternoon. One day, while in an automobile with his wife and some relatives, they passed this woman on the street. The defendant waved his hand at her and referred to her as his girl. On the day of his disappearance a woman, doubtlessly the corespondent, called up the defendant over the telephone at his house in Dover, and upon being told by his wife that he was not there, left word that she would call again. Shortly thereafter the defendant called his wife over the telephone and told her that ho didn't think he would come back to her any more. Amazed and excited, but mindful of the then recent conversation with the corespondent, the petitioner asked the defendant whether he had seen her, to which he replied that he had, that he had met her on the street, and that he had "found a friend now." Unable to comprehend the situation fully and talk rationally, the petitioner was asked by her husband to put some one else on the phone who could talk. A sister was present, and to her, over the phone, after being reproached for permitting the other woman to talk to his wife in the manner in which she had, the defendant said that he knew nothing about it, but that he had found a friend who would stick by him, and that he was going away. Pleading and remonstrance of the sister had ho affect upon the defendant, who asked that his clothes be forwarded to him, On the day he left, or thereabouts, the corespondent was discharged from her position because of her relations with the petitioner. Neither has been seen or heard of since, except by two letters. On March 2d the defendant wrote to an employe of the railroad baggage room at Morristown, from Buffalo, inquiring as to the whereabouts of the corespondent's trunk, which had been left at the baggage room to be forwarded, and in the letter he gave instructions that it be sent to Buffalo forthwith, and to advise Alice R. Wilson, General Delivery, Buffalo, N. Y., of its shipment. He further requested that it be hurried along, because the party was in need of it. On March 3d the corespondent mailed a letter at Niagara Falls, dated Buffalo, to her formeremployer, giving her address care of Miss Wilson, general delivery, Buffalo, and after requesting a recommendation of personal fitness as a nurse, among other things inquired whether he, the employer, had heard anything of the defendant, stating that she had no doubt the people of the town were talking about her leaving. When the defendant announced that he was going away, his wife employed the county detective, who located the corespondent's trunk, the one the defendant had written for, at the railway station. It contained a half dozen or more letters written by the defendant to the corespondent, in some of which he signed himself and also addressed her as "Uysee Bug." They, as the master says, are full of gush and nonsense and speak of hugs and kisses and good times had on occasions therein referred to, and tend to show that the defendant was more interested than a married man should be in the person to whom they were addressed. To these observations I subscribe, but must add the further deductions that, read in the light of the defendant's almost frantic fondness for the corespondent, his alienation from home ties, his declared purpose for leaving, the hasty and mysterious disappearance of the two and their reappearance together in Buffalo, and their long absence, explained only by these incriminating circumstances, the letters evince unmistakably a persistent pursuit of an illicit design and a lustful desire gratified. These letters are not of that asinine brand commonly credited to the adolescent or senile period. They had a singleness of purpose, and that a sinful one. The defendant and the corespondent were in the full vigor of life, and that he was a married man to her knowledge indicates forcefully the nature of their attachment. Their many trysts, clandestinely arranged by these letters, and especially the one of January 25th, when they were to meet at 7 o'clock in the evening to go to his unoccupied house—the same house where she had been before—is cogent proof of their lewdness.

Taking into consideration all of the circumstances, I cannot reach a conclusion other than that the defendant committed adultery, and not once, but often. The opportunities to commit the offense were abundant. The criminal desire is established beyond peradventure. That the two left Morristown at the same time, and were together in Buffalo, I haven't the slightest doubt. The letter from Buffalo by the corespondent to her employer inquiring as to the whereabouts of the defendant, at the very time when he, from the same place, was anxiously tracing her trunk, while obviously a ruse to disarm suspicion that they had eloped, reflects very strongly the relation in which the two were then living.

The exceptions will be sustained, and a decree of divorce advised.