WEALTHY DRUG ADDICT

Hokitika Guardian, 29 January 1931, Page 8

WEALTHY DRUG ADDICT

BRITISH SOCIETY WOMAN

BARRED FROM AUSTRALIA

SYDNEY, January 1(5

There travelled on the R.H.s. Ormonde to Sydney from London a young, talented, beautiful woman, representative of British society—and the Australian Customs authoi ities refused to allow her to land, on the ground that she was addicted to drugs and was therefore undesirable. The duestion is now being decided whether the company will have to take her back to England, or whether, as she desires, she will lie allowed to transfer to another vessel and go on to New Zealand.

She is the wife of a wealthy landholder of Worcester, much senior to her in years. Her income is said to he in the region of £20,000 a year; but it had been so restricted through her drug-taking habits that when slm reached Sydney she had only £l7 in her possession. Her husband is reputedly inordinately cruel to her. H" is a keen lion-hunter and is even now in South Africa with a big entourage on a shooting expedition. At their home in Worcester lie lias a staff ol picked African servants, and before them, his favourites, he has so humiliated his wife that they say his cruelty drove her to the drugs. The woman’s craving was noted soon after die vessel left England, and spe was placed in the care ol the ship’s doctor. By careful regulation of supplies, after her hypodermics had been confiscated from her luggage, he managed to effect a temporary cure. She became one of the most charming passengers aboard, and was believed to have been effectively cured. When the vessel touched at Australian ports, however, she secured fresh supplies from somewhere, and was soon a hopeless addict again. By the time Sydney was reached she was bed-ridden, and in any case would have had to be carried ashore on a stretcher, so wild had been her orgy of drug-taking. The Customs authorities stopped in. and she is being kept aboard in a cabin, with a nurse in day and night attendance.