At Greenwich Petty Sessions, on Monday, a man named John
Pen- son, a carpenter, of Lewisham, was charged with intermarrying with Eliza Brown, his first wife being at the time alive.
James Taylor, sexton of St. Nicholas, at Deptford, stated that he was present at the marriage of the prisoner with his first wife ; whose maiden name was Ann Wootton, on the 21st day of October 1830. They were married by banns.
Penson here produced an agreement entered into between him and his first wife to separate, drawn up by a clergyman; and said, that after signing that paper, he did not consider that she had any claim upon him.
Eliza Brown, the second wife, stated, that she was married to the prisoner on the 10th of last month, at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.
Mr. Wray, the Magistrate, asked her whether she knew that the prisoner was a married man when she married him?
Brown replied, that she knew he was married at the time; but by an agree- ment drawn up between them by a clergyman of the Established Church, for them to separate, she considered that the marriage was done away with. The first wife gave him 2/. to get married, and never to trouble her any more.
The first wife denied that she gave him money to get married with, or that she knew of his intentions.
Atkins, the beadle of Lewishatn, said that he knew it for a fact, that she gave the prisoner 2/. to get married with. The Magistrates told him to be silent. Beadle—" I cannot be silent, gentlemen, when I hear a woman like that telling such infamous lies against a man that I have known since he was a child. The woman is now living en a state of adultery with a clergyman."
The mother of the second wife, who was presMit, said, that she knew at the time her daughter was going to be married, that the prisoner was a married man, and had a wife living ; but she thought it an excellent match for her daughter, as she thought time agreement drawn up by the clergyman did away with the first marriage ; and the circumstance of the first wife giving him 2/. to get married, convinced her that it was correct.
The prisoner was committed for trial. The second wife is a very pretty-looking girl, and apparently not more than seventeen years of age.
[Wife, husband, mother, daughter, and priest !--could any country under heaven, save moral England, exhibit such a combination ?]
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