Opinion
03-03-1897
STACKHOUSE v. STACKHOUSE.
S. M. Roberts, for complainant.
(Syllabus by the Court.)
Bill by William R. Stackhouse against Carrie S. Stackhouse for divorce. Decree for complainant.
S. M. Roberts, for complainant.
GREY, V. C. The bill in this case is filed for an absolute divorce, on the ground of the adultery of the complainant's wife. The allegation of the bill is that the defendant committed adultery on different days in September, 1896, with one named man, and with others unknown, at No. 202 Becket street, Camden. The master finds that the parties intermarried at Camden, on the 31st day of January, 1894, and were then, and have since continued to be, inhabitants of this state. He also finds and reports that the evidence adduced was insufficient to prove the adultery of the defendant as alleged in the bill. To this report, exception is taken by the complainant; and the question now under consideration is, does the evidence submitted sufficiently prove the allegation of the adultery of the wife, set forth in the bill? The evidence, which is ex parte, shows that the parties were married in 1894. The husband is 27, the wife 23, years of age. They lived in Camden. Their relations were pleasant until February, 1896, when differences arose between them, which continued and increased, and were due, the husband states, to an unexplained irritability of temper on the part of the wife, and to her habit of running out at night. These inexplicable exhibitions of ill temper, and the statements made by the wife to the husband to the effect that she had a beau, and the fact that frequently, on returning home late at night, she smelled strongly of liquor, and her further inquiry as to what he would do if she should commit adultery, led the husband to doubt her faithfulness, and in the early fall of 1896 he caused her to be followed and watched. What was discovered is the evidence by which the complainant claims that he has shown facts which justify a decree of absolute divorce.
There are three nights in September, 1896, when different witnesses saw the defendant in association with the man with whom she is alleged to have committed adultery. On September 18th, the defendant left her husband's house, and met this man. They walked the streets together for a long time; went into an hotel by a private entrance, and probably drank together; afterwards again walked the streets, and stood together behind a tree; and her husband swears she arrived home at midnight, her breath smelling of some intoxicant, denying that she had been drinking, and that she had spent the evening as it was proven she did spend it. On the 25th of September, she again met the same man, who was waiting at a dark street corner. Then they walked for some distance, and separated, but only to meet again at the private or ladies' entrance to a drinking saloon, which was shown to have had rooms accessible from either entrance, furnished with lounges, and which was frequented by unmarried men and women, and was proven to have been at this time a house of assignation. This place they entered together by the private entrance, and remained there some little time; then came out, and walked off in a direction leading away from her home. On the 28th of September, she left her husband's house at half past 7 in the evening, and met the same man, who was again baiting at a street corner. They talked together for a while, and separated. At another place, a little later, she waited, and he again joined her. They went together to an alley which was the rear entrance to the house where it is specifically alleged the offense was committed. There a woman who kept this house was waiting. After a short conference, the whole party went into the house by the rear entrance. The second-story front room was lighted. The voices of a man and woman talking were heard in this room. The woman's voice was recognized as that of the defendant. The light was turned down, andfinally put out. The front of the house was watched till early morning, but they were not seen to come out. The woman who kept this house was reputed to have kept a house of ill fame. The lieutenant of the police district swore that her reputation was not good, and that she was a bad kind of a woman, whom they had to watch. She had been twice previously arrested, and finally ran away overnight, while under a charge. As to this particular house, the proof by other witnesses is clear that it was a place of prostitution, and that the second-story front room was fitted to be used, and was, during September, 1896, in actual use, for such purposes. The house was declared by the police lieutenant to be such a flagrant case that a raid was about to be made by the police when the woman "got out." On the 3d day of October, 1896, late at night, the complainant found the same man near his house under very suspicious circumstances, and he then charged his wife with being unfaithful to him, as above narrated. She did not deny the charge, simply replying, "Is that so?" in a scornful manner. A few weeks after this, the defendant was brought in a closed carriage to a hospital by the same man, for treatment of a disease of a private nature, he pretending to have been sent as a representative of the liveryman whose carriage brought the party; yet he made an agreement to pay the defendant's board at the hospital, and visited her there several times afterwards. There is other proof that the defendant met this man on other nights, and also, by the testimony of the husband, that she went to the hotel where he boarded; but the above summary is collected from the testimony of witnesses other than the complainant, and it supports his testimony in many respects.
Adultery is very rarely shown by direct proof. If the evidence is sufficient to lead to the belief that the crime has been committed, by reasonable inference from the circumstances proven, it is enough to support a decree. Day v. Day, 4 N. J. Eq. 445; Loveden v. Loveden, 2 Hagg. Consist. 3. In the case under consideration, the defendant, a young married woman, is shown to have repeatedly left her home alone, in the evening; to have met on several different occasions a man who seemed to be waiting for her; to have walked the streets with him until late in the night; conversed with him behind trees and in dark places; to have gone into an hotel with him. On one night, she separated from him on one side of a block, only to meet him a little later on the other side, at the private entrance to a place shown to have been furnished and frequently used as a house of assignation, which they entered together, and where they remained for some time; and a few nights afterwards there is proven another meeting and parting, to join each other again a little later, in a visit, by means of a back alley, to a house then in use as a house of prostitution, kept by a woman of bad reputation, and so well known that the police were about to raid it. In this house the defendant and this man were shown to have gone. While they were there, her voice was heard in a bedroom in the second story, conversing with a man; and this room is shown to have been often used at that time for lecherous purposes. Upon those statements of fact, what other conclusion can be drawn as to the relations of these parties than that they were criminal? Why should a married woman secretly leave her home, alone, night after night, and meet a man who was obviously waiting for her? Why should he on these occasions be waiting at the place she goes to, unless by prearrangement with her? Why should they, at these night meetings, separate, and almost immediately meet again, and together go to places of notoriously immoral reputation? Why should the wife, when specifically accused, fail to make any denial of this scandalous charge, and appear within a few weeks under the protection of the man who had been named to her as her paramour, accepting his undertaking to pay her hospital expenses while under treatment for a disease of a private nature, and receiving his visits at the hospital?
The unexplained going of a married woman to a brothel, together with a man other than her husband, has been held to furnish conclusive evidence of adultery. Cane v. Cane, 39 N. J. Eq. 148; Eliot v. Eliot, cited in Williams v. Williams, 1 Hagg. Consist. 302. But where she goes to such a place with a man whom she has clandestinely met night after night, and they each reach the immoral house by devious and contrivedly separate approach and obvious effort to avoid detection, the inferences of guilty agreement to be drawn are, in my judgment, irresistibly fatal to belief in her virtue. I think the proof is sufficient to justify a decree in favor of the complainant, and that the exceptions to the master's report must be sustained. I will advise a decree from the bond of matrimony, on the ground of the adultery of the defendant.