Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 26, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 November 1906 — WIVES TO THROW [ARTICLE]

WIVES TO THROW

Thursday the woman who had been staying here for the past two weeks as the wife of X. W. Wittman, manager of a medicine and variety show that has been here that long, went away telling her landlady, Mrs. Sears, that she was going to .Chicago for a few days visit. Friday forenoon another and quite different looking lady arrived on the train and repaired to the Sears residence and enquired for “The Doctor,” who was still in bed. Mrs. Sears was disposed to question into this lady’s right to be shown to the doctor’s virtuous bedchamber, and she was thunderstruck when she asserted she was his wife. She was so positive in her claims however that sue was showed to the doctor’s room, where she seems to have received full if not pleased recognition as being the wife she claimed to he. And which relationship he fully admitted.

Mrs, Sears was naturally very indignant that she should have been so imposed upon, and refused any longer to harbor the doctor, and he and his wife went to a hotel. Still back of *this incident was the case of another female member of this show who left on Saturday of last week. She rushed out to the depot in time to catch the milk train, but betore she had time to fix her hair up. She had told in one of the restaurants here that she was the one really hired to take the wifey role in the company, but when the impressionable doctor got his eyes on the little blond she was “it” forthwith, and this other woman simply a common member of the company. According to some reports, thia first woman was the cause of the real wife coming Friday, and that she had got even with the fascinating doctor for choosing anothei’s charms to hers, by writing to the real wife and telling her about what the situation of affairs here was.

By all reports there was quite a stormy time when the real wife reached the dot tor’s side, and she had not fully relieved her mind after they got out on the streets in the business part of town, as she was overheard reproving him very vigorously, and he was heard to reply that it was all a part of the show business. The doctor himself says it was all thru a mistake. That he was married about two years ago, and finding the marriage a mistake, parted from his wife, and had been Informed that she bad got a divorce, and he had therefore made a marriage by written agreement wiih this other woman who came heie with him, and asserts that such a contract marriage is legal in New York, where he claims it was executed.