Haverfordwest and Milford Haven Telegraph and General Weekly Reporter for the Counties of Pembroke Cardigan Carmarthen Glamorgan and the Rest of South Wales

Unhappy Married Life. I KXIFE THROWING AT FISHGUARD. I PERSISTENT CRUELTY ALLEGED. I CASE DISMISSED. I At the Fishguard Petty Sessions held on Wednesday last Mrs Lettice Thomas, of Plasy- fron, Fishguard, applied for a separation order against her husband, James Thomas, on the ground of persistent cruelty. Mr W. Evans appeared for the applicant, and Mr A. B. Williams (Messrs Williams and Williams) for the husband. Lettice Thomas, in her evidence, stated that she married defendant 13 -ea1"o ago. He had from time to time treated her cruelly. Once he kicked a dinner plate and injured her face, and elie had to be medically attended. When her son died-he used to mock her in her be- reavement. In March last he was brought home by Thomas Jenkins under the influence of drink, and was very abusive, kicking the fur- niture about. He once threatened to shoot her. Jenkins stayed there with her until 6 o'clock in the morning, as she was in bodily fear of her hubandi At midnight on the Saturday before last August Bank Holiday he came home again drunk, and threw a knife at her, but she was not injured. He then threatened to kill them all, and she had to leave the house. On the following day she went in to get her clothes, when he pushed her downstairs and told her to clear out, and that he would will- ingly pay towards her keep. She and her daughter had to leave the house many times because of his threats and conduct. She was afraid to live with him. Annie Thomas, the applicant's daughter, corrbborated her mother's evidence. David Owen Thomas said he was the hus- band of the last witness, and lived at Smyth Street, Fishguard. They went to live at CSfe daeh Vale, where they remained until last February. From then on they lived with the defendant and Mrs Thomas. He was quite willing for them to live with him. One night in March last the defendant came home the worse for drink. It would be about 11 o'clock on a Thursday night. Tom Jenkins brought him home. His wife, mother-in-law, and my- self were all downstairs. When the defendant came in he started kicking up a row and turned the nlaoo unside down; Tom Jenkins j had to hold him down on the sofa to keep him quiet. He used several threats. He said he would buy a gun and shoot them. Tom Jenkins stayed until 6 o'clock in the morning. The defendant was^friendly with witness, and shook hands with him. The suggestion made that all the rows were through him was wrong. In August last, on the Saturday night before Bank Holiday, the defendant eame home about 12.30. He was in bed at the time. The noise downstairs disturbed him, and he got up and lit a candle. He heard some ructions down below. He saw his mother-in-law running up the stairs, and as she turned round he saw « knife falL from her breast. The defendant said he would go back and fetch another knife to kill them all, and he went, back. Mrs Thomas then shouted murder and witness's wife fainted. Capt-. Tom Lewis then came in and prevented the defendant from striking Mrs Thomas. They then dressed and the three of them went out. Having regard to what he have seen he considered the defendant dangerous. Cross-examined by Mr A. B. Williams: When they came back here they wanted him to let them the house next door. The row was not because he refused to give notice to the woman next door. It was not because of this that Mrs Thomas would not speak to him. It was not true that he had shaved on the same table as the defendant was having a meal. He did not hear his wife tell Capt. Lewis that the defendant was turning them out of the house, neither did he hear the defendant say that they need not go out. The defendant did not say that he objected to them staying in the house. He (witness) was in his room when he saw the knife drop. He went back to the house on the I Sunday morning. Mrs Thomas went upstairs to see the defendant, but he did not hear what conversation took place. He was ako-traofc and fore In the honse on the Monday. "The defendant was in bed. They had the key of the front door, and afterwards took the furniture away. He did not know whether any food was offered to the defendant on the Sunday and Monday. He remembered the night that Jenkins brought the defendant home. He went to bed some time in the morning. In answer to the Clerk (Mr V. J. G. Johns), witness said the defendant was very drunk the night in March. The reason they stayed with defendant was because they could not get a house of their own. Defendant did not always come home drunk, Between March and August he did not hear any row. Thomas Jenkins said he lived at Rose Cot- tage, Fishguard. He took the defendant home one night. It was a Saturday night. He saw him by the Cambrian, and the defendant was under the influence of drink. It was about 11 o'clock. When they got to the house Mrs Thomas was in the kitchen. As soon as they got in he started making a dis- turbance. He upset the table and wanted to hit his wife. Witness stopped him and held him down. At Mrs Thomas's request he stayed there until six o'clock in the morning. Mrs Thomas begged him to stay. That was the only time he took the defendant home. He had seen him under the influence, of drink before. Cross-examined by Mr A. B. Williams: He had seen the defendant drunk in Fishguard. He was a nephew of Mrs Thomas. He was not drinking with Mr Thomas that evening. THE DEFEINCE. James Thomas, the defendant, then went into the box, and said he was married to the complainant in 1906. She was then a widow with two children. For the first eight years or so they got on splendidly together, and he did all he could to bring up her two chil- dren. He had reason to complain of his wife on many occasions. It started when her son died, when she became quite a different woman. It was not due to her health. She went really funny and neglected him alto- gether. She used to go away to Llanwern, and he had to make his own food. She used to be away for three or four days at a time without coming back. Referring to the plate incident, he said the truth was that his wife picked up a plate and tried to hit him on the head with it, but he kicked it out of her hand. He did this to defend himself, and he had to do so on many. occasions. She had threat- vened with the poker on more than one occa- sion, and also threatened to smash him. She did not ask his consent to get her daughter and son-in-law to come and live with them. His wife went away to fetch them, and she I also went to look for work for her son-in-law. He told her that he would not have them in the house but she brought them there against his wish. Things were all right while the daughter and her husband were away for 14 months, and for a month or so after they came they were kind to him. Before March 25th last they told him he would have to give notice to Mrs Mathias, who lived next door, for them to have the house. He told them he could not agree to sending Mrs Mathias out of the house as she was an elderly person, and he refused to give her notice. After that • they would not speak to him except to quarrel with him, and this continued up to August. The son-in-law used to try and annoy him in every way, and one day whilst he was having his tea the son-in-law came and shaved on the table he was eating from. He told his wife at last that the son-in-law would have to leave as he could not live with him. His wife re- plied that her son-in-law should not go, but that he could go. On the night Jenkins took him home he and Jenkins had been drinking together in the Stores, then they went home. He did not do anything' when he got home. It was not true that he knocked the table down. They did have a row, and it was all about the son-in-law. There was no need for Jenkins to have stayed at all. tie had never threat- ened to kill his wife. All the evidence for the complainant that had been given that day was untrue. On the night of tue 2nd August iast lie did go home the worse lor drink auout 11.30. Wlieu lie got in his wife was in the kitchen, and she put his supper in front of mm which was quite cold. tie asked her to warm it for him, but she went upstairs and shouted as she went "that it was good enough for a blackguard like him, and especially as he had been brought up Oil smuggling." This upset him very much, and without thinking what he was doing he threw a knife which he had in his. hand up the stairs after his wife. The knife did not strike her at all, and his wife came down and picked it up and took it with her upstairs into the front room. She then opened the window and shouted "mur- der. Capt. Tom Lewis then came in, and whilst he was there lie told him that his son- in-law would have to leave. Unfortunately, Capt. Lewis had left for sea before he was served with the summons, otherwise he wouild have called him as a witness. He went to bed after the row. About eight o'clock the next morning (Sunday) he heard knocking at the front door, and his wife shouting that if he did not open the door at once she would break it in with a pickaxe. She came up- stairs and into his bedroom, and said in Welsh "that if she could only have the law free for half an hour she would choke him." She also called him all sorts of names. They had all their meals in the house that day, and they were all back and fore in the house from then to the 3rd Sep.tember. They would go in as soon as he went out and used to sleep next door. For the first fortnight his wife (;Doked his dinner, but after that she did nothing for him. He went to the house next door and asked his wife to come back and that they would try and live peacefully, but she refused, and said she would go to the union first. On the 3rd of SeptemDer, on going home in the evening, he found the house cleared of furniture, except a few things which belonged to him. They had taken some oilcloth and a feather bed belonging to him. His wife ha<l also taken £ 14 in notes which he had put by. His wife had since passed him on the road without speaking to him, although he wished her good night. She had on several occasions used very bad lang- uage towards him. He was still quite pre- pared to take his wife back, and he had never locked the door since she had left. • Cross-examined by Mr W. Evans: Every- thing went on all right until about six years ago. He used to drink sometimes, but he never treated his wife cruelly. It was not true that he mocked his wife when she was crying after her little boy, neither was it true that before the little boy's death the brother and sister had to go and sleep in another house because of his conduct. There had been quarrelling for the last six years. The son- in-law had been the trouble of late. His wife had left him for four days, and on one occa- sion for a week. He had only been taken home drunk once. He was also drunk on the 2nd August. On that day he did not go home to his meals, as there was no pleasure in going home. As to the plate incident, he main- tained that there was nothing on the plate. His wife tried to hit him with the plate, but he kicked it. A piece of the plate struck his wife in the face. He had never been friendly with the son-in-law, and he was not willing for them to come and live with him and his wife. It was not true that Tom Jenkins held him down on the sofa. He and Jenkins sat on the sofa talking and smoking. He did not kick any furniture in the room. The wit- nesses had said heaps of things which were not true, and had done all they could to blacken his character. He had never threat- ened to buy a gun to shoot them. He threw the knife because his wife called him a i "drunken blackguard," and said that I had been brought up on "smuggling." He got liita" a temper,fcnd not thinking what he had in his hand threw the knife after his wife to frighten her. He might have struck Captain Tom Lewis in his excitement. He never told his wife to clear out of his sighj, nor had he ever hit her on the nose or caught her by the ears. He did have a hot temper. He had never been the cause of her leaving him, it was all due to her hasty temper. In answer to the Clerk, he said that if the son-in-law was not there he and his wife would have got on splendidly together, and the time they were alone for 14 months was the best time they had. The cause of all the trouble had been the interference of the young couple. He could do nothing against two women; one was quite enough. (Laughter.) He was quite prepared to give up the drink for "six months and altogether if necessary. Cross-examined by Mr Evans: It was not true that his wife had to sleep in the kitchen during the 14 months the young couple were away. Re-examined by Mr A. B. Williams: His wife had found a job for the son-in-law. The differences were because of the way he was treated. Mrs Sarah Mathias, who was allowed to give her evidence in Welsh, stated that she lived at Plasyfron. In August last Mrs Thomas came and asked her if her son-in-law could come in and sleep in the house. Mrs Thomas later asked if she and her daughter could also sleep there, and although there was not much room for them all she consented. She was not told the reason for this until the Monday. Mrs Thomas then told her that she had left the house because her son-in-law had to go. She had been living there for 6t years, and Mrs Thomas had never complained to her about the conduct of her husband. She bad never seen Mr Thomas drunk. Mrs Thomas was often away, and during those times there ld be no one at home to look after Mr Thomas. After a fortnight after Mrs Thomas and her daughter and son-in-law had been staying with her, Mr Thomas came and asked his wife to go back to him, but Mrs Thomas refused. Cross-examined by Mr W. Evans :About 2 years ago Mrs Thomas came in and spent the; night with her, and said that she had knocked her face against the latch of the door. She did not see any blood. She did not hear anyone shouting "murder" on the Saturday night. Mrs Thomas never told her that she was afraid of her husband. It was on the previous Saturday that she was asked to give evidence. No one had told her what to say, Miss Mary Thomas said she was a sister of the defendant. On the night of the 2nd August her sister-in-law came and asked her to come over as her husband had been after her with a knife. She went over and asked her brother if he had done so, and he replied that he had only thrown the knife up the stairs and that his wife had picked it up. Mrs Thomas then asked Capt. Lewis, who was present, to go upstairs, but he refused, saying lie did not want to interfere. Mrs Thomas was in a high temper, as she generally was when she had been quarrelling. The next morning she saw Mrs Thomas go to the front door, and heard her shouting {hat if the door was not opened she would break it down. Cross-examined by Mr Williams: Mrs Thomas was in an awful temper on the Satur-I day. The defendant was also in a temper. In answer to the Clerk, she said emphati- cally that Mrs Thomas was not afraid of her husband. This concluded the evidence, and the bench retired. to' consider their decision. After about 15 minutes' deliberation they returned, (Continued at foot of next column).

FEAT INSTEAD OF COAL. 1 MOORS A STOREHOUSE OF FUEL I AND CRUDE OIL. I BY A SPECIAL COMMISSIONER. J There is a vast slumbering wealth on the moors of Great Britain and Ireland that might be tapped on a wholesale scale for the benefit of the nation, and now that the spirit of reconstruction and development prevails, something may be done towards the utilisation of the useful materials that lie hidden beneath the heather.. • Peat as a substitute for coal has been won in several parts of the country during the past year, and the re-discovered fuel has proved so satisfactory that more intensive working of it is in prospect next season. For generations it has been jn use in the Irish cabins and the cots of the Highland crofters. There the peat-users suffer from the disadvantage that the material must be cut in the spring and sun-dried through the summer. A ton of peat consists of 75 per cent. of water-, and when dried by sun warmth there still remains about 50 per cent. of fluid. What is required is a mechanical means of drying that will reduce the ab- sorbed liquid to a minimum, and this achieved peat could be made a profitable I and marketable commodity. « Using the Heath Deposits. I It is within the range of practical politics to establish a paying industry upon the moorlands, not merely for the production of a fuel, but for the extraction of crude oils and other ingredients. Other countries have made use of the heath deposits. Canada, the United States, Russia, Ger- many, Austria, have all developed the peat industry to, a more or less degree. Why cannot Britain do likewise ? One fails to find a satisfactory reason why she should not, and probably Britain would have evolved a peat industry before this date were it not for what has been described as the curse of cheap coal." 'That, if it has been a curse, has now vanished. Coal is not cheap nor plentiful, and thousands of people other than the families of Scotland and Ireland are using peat to keep the home fires burning. The sun-dried young coal," for the sub- stance is coal in an embryonic stage, is in use in many homes from Cumberland tight down the Pennine Chain to Derbyshire, at ilmslpw Common, in Cheshire, at Chat 3SS; the property of Manchester Corpora- tion, Lancashire, and in innumerable pieces in Devon and Cornwall. In most instances the fuel has been collected by individual effort and handled in the most amateur fashion. Yet it has proved what might be called a burning success. To such an ex- tent has this happened at Wilmslow, where great merchants of Manchester use it in the grates of their mansions,, that an increased area of the common has just been set aside for the use of those who desire to dig peat fuel next spring. Treated scientifically, the materials of the moors could be made valu- able to the nation. I Experiments in Dumfries. Exhaustive experiments made on a Dum- frie^shire moss some 15 years ago by Mr. A. B. Lennox, proved that the deposits formed by centuries of decayed heather could be treated to form either a fuel, a pre- servative, a deodoriser, a fertiliser or for the production of a crude oil, which con- tained a considerable percentage of petrol and gave bye-products that could be applied to a variety of purposes. V These experiments were watched with interest, but unfortunately they came to an untimely end .through the exhaustion of i capital. Peat fuel could not compete with cheap coal, and to convey a ton of the peat from the moor to the nearest market ccot more than did a ton-of coal delivered in the cellar for 8s. per load. There has been a great change in coal prices since then, and now there seems a probability that the peat industry may be revived. The preparation of peat for combustible purposes is a comparatively simple opera- tton, requiring a compact and not over-ex- pensive plant. Peat is found in deposits of from 10 to 50 feet thick, and as much water as possible is drawn out by means of deep drains. The peat is then cut by mechanical means or by manual labour, and run through a heated drier which extracts the greater percentage of moisture. The dried substance is placed in moulds, which, subjected to strong pressure, turns the fuel out in bricks of the size and shape of a large egg. In this form the peat is easy to handle and can be built into a grate better than any other fuel, while, as Mr. Lennox's ex- periments show, the heat value of the bricks was equivalent to that of the best grade of household coal. The Value of Bye-Products. From the fuel aspect the question of the* utilisation of the moorland produce is alone worth more than passing consideration. Peat, however, possesses more valuable pro- perties than that of warming a house or cooking a meal. There are mosses, con- taining thick deposits, in Great Britain and Ireland, covering at the lowest estimate an area of six million acres and capable of producing 1,800 tons of concentrated fuel. If this moss of natural material wag sub- jected to distillation it would produce 61,000 million gallons of crude oil weigh- ing 244 million tons—truly here is a more gigantic oilfield, on the surface and simple to work, than is ever likely to be discovered by boring, should the whole of our isle con- tain natural oil reservoirs. From this could be obtained 36,000 million gallons of oil suitable for fuel for the propulsion of naval or mercantile ships. The lower fractions of the oil would form a petrol substitute that might be used for motor cars, agricul- tural tractors and other type of oil or petrol engines. In the process of distillation ammonium sulphate, valuable for manurial purposes, and other ingredients are left as bye-pro- ducts. The coke residue is about 25 per cent, of the dried peat employed, and this can be utilised in various ways. For some purposes it is believed to be superior to gas-works' coke. The moorlands present great possibilities. When William Murdoch first distilled coal for gas he did not dream of the value of the bye-products. C Peat in the hands of scien- tists may be found to contain even more valuable properties than those already dis- covered in coal.

PURHAN SOAP

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(Continued from preceding column). and Mr W. G. James said it ha<l been very painful for them to listen to the story, and they hoped that the parties would yet come together. Continuing, Mr James said that after very careful consideration, they had come to the conclusion that there had been no persistent cruelty, and the case would, therefore, be dismissed.