• Preamble

  WHEREAS Mildred Elaine Smyth, then Mildred Elaine Fraser, of Manurewa, in the Provincial District of Auckland, a spinster, aged eighteen years, was on the twentieth day of April, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, lawfully married to one then described as Maurice James Walkington Smyth, of Manurewa, company-manager, at her father's residence at Manurewa aforesaid, by the Reverend Alexander A Murray: And whereas the said Maurice James Walkington Smyth prior to the said marriage represented himself to be and was believed by the said Mildred Elaine Smyth to be a respectable and law-abiding citizen: And whereas the said Maurice James Walkington Smyth was on the thirtieth day of August, nineteen hundred and twenty-two, convicted of arson and sentenced to five years' imprisonment with hard labour and declared an habitual criminal: And whereas the said Maurice James Walkington Smyth was at various times between the years nineteen hundred and eleven and nineteen hundred and twenty-two convicted on fourteen separate charges of false pretences, and was also convicted of other crimes and sentenced to lengthy terms of imprisonment, and was within one month of the said marriage arrested for arson, and was tried and convicted and sentenced as aforesaid: And whereas the said Mildred Elaine Smyth married the said Maurice James Walkington Smyth in good faith, relying on his representations and not knowing of his criminal record: And whereas the said Mildred Elaine Smyth has presented a petition to the General Assembly of New Zealand in Parliament assembled praying that her marriage with the said Maurice James Walkington Smyth be dissolved:

BE IT THEREFORE ENACTED by the General Assembly of New Zealand in Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—