MARRIED FOR FUN.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXII, Issue 9018, 4 December 1907, Page 4

MARRIED FOR FUN.

New York, October 13. j An extraordinary sequel to the I elopement of Miss Helen Maloney, j daughter of the Pittsburg mil- , lionaire, Mr Martin Maloney, with , Mr Samuel Olarkson, an English- , man, is provided by the statement j of a broker, Mr Arthur Herbert ( Osborne, who declares that he i secretly manied Miss Maloney on December 28th, 1905, at Mamargoneck, a suburb of New York. Mr Osborne is living with his | mother in an apartment in Eighty- i first street, which has been besieged , all day by a crowd of reporters, j The young man, however, resolutely 'refuses to be interviewed, and to all , inquiries the servants reply that he has left for the Adirondack*, which j is untrue. Yesterday he.;managed to - elude the American pressmen and ; slip down to the office of Mr Wil- • liam J. Fanning, solicitor to Mr Martin Maloney. the millionaire father. _ On the authority of Mr Fanning, savs the Daily Mail correspondent, I am able emphatically to contradict the romantic statements according to which Mr Osborne was tho victim ol a hopeless passion for the lady whom he professes still to regard as his wife. "Mr Osborne, says Mr Faun, in-', "certainly did not impress me as a candidate for suicide, as the ne>vspapesr depicted him. He is a straightforward honest young man, an;l the tale, as ho told it to me, was that he considered the entire marriage ceremony as a joko. Unfortunately, it is no joking matter, for though the marriage certificate be.irs the fictitious names which tho parties adopted for the occasion, yob there seems little doubt that it is legal. Still, such marriagesihave in the past often been annulled. ' "What imparts such a serious as-iect to the entire affair is the reported second marriage of Miss I H:len with Mr Clarkson in Montreal. It is certain that the girl, who was educated in the Roman C-.tholic faith, did not consider the ceremony before the justice of the poaue as binding. Miss Helen was alwavs a lively high-spirited girl, full 6f fun and ready for anything. I can readily imagine that sho was oat on an automobile trip with a party of friends and someone 'dared' her to bo married; she would 'go right ahead.' It would not occur to heir that such a civil ceremony was a solemn affair. Until I have some evirteuce of it I will not believe that she realised she was committing bigamy in eloping with Mr Olarkson. Mr Osborno is quite willing for the marriage to be formally annulled. He told me that after the ceremnoy, at whish a Miss Graham and the wife of the officiating justice were witnesses, tne party returned to New York, joined more friends, and weut to a theatre. After the theatre they had dinner, following which Miss Helen returned home and Mr Osborne went to his mother. A few days later Mr Osborne resumed his studies at Princeton University, and from that time to the present the couple have onlv met a few times." That both Miss Helen and Mr Osborne considered the marriage ceremony simply as a "lark" is further proved by the statement of Justice Boyd. According to Mr Boyi, who did not suspect the identity of the bridal couple, the birdegroom. while giving the name of Herbert. Osborne, said that ins father was "L. M. Ogden," while the bride signed the register as "'Helen Eugene, and Mary Bryce. " The ceremony over, the couple kissed each other in a manner which in the light of their present conduct, shows that they were s.mply acting •with the object of deceiving the onlookers. It is reported to-day that Mr Martin Maloney sailed for Liverpool five days ago, and intends to join Mr and Mrs Ritchie (Miss MaUuey's sister) in Loudon, for tho purpose of extricating Miss Helen as far as possible from the extremely awkward positoin in which her rash conduct has placed her. But whether Miss Helen and Mr Clarkson arc actually in London is still a matter of some doubt to Mr Fanning, who is inclined to misbelieve the'story that Mr Olarkson consulted a New York lawyer regarding the j legality of the mock marriage coreI mony.