Page:English laws for women in the nineteenth century.djvu/120

108  nature, and the amount allowed under it being necessarily dependent upon the amounts of our respective incomes, I did, in 1851, upon, Mrs Norton's income being increased by 500l. a year upon her mother's death, while mine was, from various causes, diminished, propose to reduce the 500l. to 300, which I was afterwards willing to increase to 400l.

It is also true, that down to March in the last year (1852), since when, and from the year previous, the amount of the allowances has been the subject of discussion, I allowed to Mrs Norton the undiminished sum of 500l. a year; that, consequently, for several years she has,—and that even by her own admission—been in the receipt of an income of at least 1,500''l. a year, und always has had an income far larger in proportion than mine; and yet she has incessantly contracted debts with numerous honest creditors, very many of whom are at this moment 'unpaid, and instead of applying her abundant means to the payment of these debts, has driven the creditors to resort to me, oppressing me with litigation and costs, and impairing my already crippled means, which should have been applied to the maintenance of myself and my two sons, both of them just entering life. It is under these circumstances that I ash, on whom it is that the coarse and serious charge of cheating creditors may be truly made?''

The first public notice of this astonishing series of fabrications, came from Mr Leman. Having pointed out the utter inaccuracy of the portion that came within his own knowledge, namely, the drawing up of the contract, he very courteously proposed that it should be corrected by Mr Norton himself. That not being complied with, Mr Leman addressed the