James Bruce (Jnr) counter-claim against William Archer re: credit warning against Ellen Archer (nee Bruce) on leaving him.

Text reads:

• • Notice

In answer to an advertisement in the Bathurst Free Press of Saturday, the 28th April, signed William Archer, cautioning the public against giving credit to his wife, Ellen Archer, stating that she had left him without any cause or provocation, I beg to contradict his statement, the said William Archer having left his wife of his own accord, and to state that it is not the first time, he having left his wife four times to my own knowledge within the last two years: likewise that she has not had two pounds from him for the space of two years. On the last time of leaving her, he took away what few articles of furniture they had, intending to sell them, but they were so worthless that he could not get any offer for them. When upon oath in the Police Court at Bathurst his statement was that he never had any cause or provocation whatever to desert his wife; whereas at the present time he makes it known that he has a comfortable home for her, but she will not accept of it – for the best of reasons in my opinion. So far as I can learn it is a place of about eight feet square, and I think at present occupied by two persons, situated in that highly respectable neighbourhood known as Barrack Lane. I have also heard from a highly respectable gentleman in this neighbourhood to whom Mr Archer stated that whenever he wanted to purchase any article of wearing apparel he had to beg the money and it was invariably taken from him again by Mrs Archer’s brothers. I should like to learn which of them took it from him, but at all events, according to that statement, it may be presumed that William Archer will have to solicit the public for credit much sooner than his wife, Ellen Archer.

• PS – I have inserted this, being the brother of Mrs Archer, to let her husband and his friends know that his sister wants no credit.
  • James Bruce
• Clear Creek, May 1, 1855

Bathurst Free Press and Mining Journal, Sat 12 May 1855, Page 3, Advertising, https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/62053596