Mr. Theodore Utz, of Stapleton, L. I., an upholsterer by trade, was the next witness. He had received letters from Miss Ruff, and was familiar with her handwriting. He had seen a letter addressed by her to Mr. Westfall since he left for Europe. The letter was addressed to Mr. Westfall in Hamburg, and he was familiar with its contents.
Counsellor Hummel: "Now state the contents of that letter as near as you can recollect."
Counsellor Cook: "I object."
Judge Otterbourg ruled out the testimony.
"Put this down on the record," said Mr. Hummel. "Counsel for defendant excepts and insists that the question is admissible on the ground that the complainant having sworn that she did not write a letter to Mr. Westfall, charging him with the paternity of the child likely to be born, the defense desires to prove by this witness, who has sworn that he knows the handwriting of, and who has received letters from, the complainant, that the complainant did write a letter to said Westfall charging him with the paternity of said to-be-born child; that it is an impossibility to secure said original letter, or said Julius Westfall, it having been proven in evidence that due effort was made to secure the original letter and Westfall, but Westfall is in Europe and not in the jurisdiction of this court."
Mr. Francis L. Specht, a butcher on the east side, who supplied the restaurants of Mr. Nisson, gave some testimony tending to prove that Miss Ruff sometimes kept late hours. When asked by Mr. Hummel, "Do you known her general character for virtue?" plaintiff's counsel objected, and the objection was sustained. The result of the case, however, was that the proceedings were eventually dismissed, the evidence conclusively establishing the fact that Miss Ruff "loved not wisely but too much."
[A]stounding Degradation.
A WIFE FLIES FROM HER HUSBAND'S HOME—REVOLTING HEARTLESSNESS OF A FATHER—AN ABHORRENT TRUTH STRANGER THAN THE MOST IMAGINATIVE FICTION.
Supreme Court.—John Edward Ditmas against Olivia A. Ditmas. Such is the title of an action for divorce instituted by Howe & Hummel, on behalf of an injured husband, against a youthful, educated, accomplished and fascinating wife, who had fallen from woman's high estate, violated her marriage vows, and by her own libidinous conduct and lustful debauchery become one of the many fallen ones of this great metropolis.
Some years previous to the action, at Perinton in this State, John E. Ditmas, a well-to-do young farmer of Gravesend, L. I., was united in the bonds of holy matrimony by the Rev. J. Butler, to the youthful, beauteous defendant, whose maiden name was Olivia A. Mead. And for some time they lived most happily together, but her father, thinking that she was then too young—she being only sixteen years of age—to enter into the marriage state, induced her to leave the husband and temporarily board with him at the corner of Main and Clinton streets, in the city of Rochester, in this State, Her father subsequently succeeded in inducing her to enter a ladies' boarding school at Rochester, but her conduct there in flirting with young gentlemen was so openly improper that the proprietress was compelled to expel her from the establishment.