Gold Hill Daily News

A Brief Matrimonial Alliance—Twenty-Four Hours of Connubial Bliss, and then Divorce.

Yesterday, through the authority of the Circuit Court, says a Detroit paper, a decree of divorce was granted to Thomas Sutherland under circumstances of a peculiar nature. It is seldom that the marital relations of those aspiring to a position of the kind are so rudely interfered with in so short a time, but queer scenes are witnessed now-a-days in courts of law.

The parties to this cause were married about the 21st day of May, 1863, by Peter Desnoyer, a Justice of the Peace of Hamtramck. The circumstances of the marriage are somewhat laughable, and decidedly out of the usual routine. The testimony in the case shows that the complainant went one day to Adam Schulte, of said township, and said to him, "Butcher, I would like to get married. I know a girl, but I cannot speak to her very well. I wish you would go along with me." To which Schulte replied that he couldn't go then; but subsequently they went together to defendant's mother's, and there the following scene transpired, as appears from the testimony of defendant's mother:

Schulte said to my mother, "Mother do you know what I am here for?" She said, "I can guess, but I do not know for sure."

Schulte then said, "I have got a young man here who would like to get married." She said, "He does not look very young, but, for all I know, he might be younger than he looks to be."

Schulte then said, "This man would like to get married to your daughter, will you allow him?" Mother said for her part she did not care; that, if he would use her as any other would, they could make up their agreement together. She said that he must not, however, come to marry defendant because she had anything, for she had nothing. Complainant said that did not make any difference. Mother said the defendant had a baby and plenty of clothes, and that was all the defendant had. Complainant said it did not make any difference; he had a farm for which he would not take $10,000 to-day. Mother said that, for her part, complainant could have defendant. That is all that was said about that.

It seems that they were married a day or two after this preliminary negotiation. Complainant was about 45 years old, and defendant was about 18, and had a fatherless child at the time. They lived together 24 hours, when defendant left complainant, and has ever since refused to live with him or have anything to do with him. Complainant's witnesses testify that the defendant, at the time, said she left complainant because he was a Catholic. It is claimed that, at the time she left complainant, she told him "he was going to h-l with his eyes wide open," and drew her wedding ring from her finger and threw it at him, and thereupon gathering up her baby and its cradle and her clothes, left the bed and board of the complainant for good. The whole transaction occupied less than a week.