An ideally perfect case of breach of promise of marriage
was tried at Taunton on Tuesday. Mr. Perry, house agent of Weston- super-Mare, aged 69, asked Harriet Baker, aged 50, to marry him, but insisted all through the correspondence that her mother should settle £50 a year on her. This was his written "condition." No such settlement could be made, the match was broken off, the old lady, who helps her mother to keep a lodging-house, brought her action, and the jury, in spite of a warning charge from the judge, actually gave her £500. No feelings had been injured, no reputa- tion touched, no chances lost, there was a mere failure to perform a conditional contract, and still a fine is inflicted as heavy as the heaviest for sedition. We verily believe if a man promised to marry his grandmother, on condition she was not related to him, and did not marry her, a British jury would give her heavy damages.
Previous page
