The Law’S Delay

(As told to Isabel Gullett by J. F.

Thomson, of Greytown, Wairarapa, N. Z.) ACT I.: Elderly native of Rarotonga, Cook Islands, being widowed for the second time, decides to try his luck with a Tahitian bride. He sends the passage money to Papeete—thus defying the immigration laws. The girl arrives promptly and goes to live with the old man.

ACT II.: Police arrive, explain to groom that he has committed a breach of the law in living with the girl. He apologises, stating that he was simply testing the lady’s capabilities as a house keeper. He is satisfied, and will be married the next day.

ACT HI.: Wedding bells—happy ever after—but — ACT IV.: Following day the bride decamps with a younger lover.

ACT V.: Two days later. The bridegroom issues divorce proceedings, and is himself in the toils of the law for importing a bride from Tahiti.

ACT VI.; Four days later. The High Court, presided over by the Administrator, Mr. Ayson, dissolves the marriage and decrees that the petitioner pay the bride’s passage back to Tahiti.

ACT VII.: Next day. The bride departs, her role in a few days having been fiancee, bride, eloper, respondent, and deportee. The old native also has had his share of the limelight, being lover who

paid the passage money, groom, abandoned groom, both defendant and petitioner in the High Court, and once more (this time compulsorily) a source of revenue for the shipping company.

Time occupied; 10 days.

Cost of proceedings: £1/5/-. —From “Ink,” 1932.