THE COLLECTION OF WIVES

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 439, 25 January 1933, Page 7

THE COLLECTION OF WIVES

A MOST EXPENSIVE HOBBY. "Hobbies are invariably expensive, but the most expensive of them all is the collection of wives."^ The comic finaneial predicament of Harrison Boyce, the American millionaire motor accessory manufacturer, elicited this legal maxim recently from Judge Wenzall^ of the Supreme Court of New Yorlc. Though still a young man, Boyce has been twice divorced. To each of his former wives he pays £3000 a month alimony, and he lately faced a £250,000 damages suit for alienation of affections brought by the husband of his second wife's younger sister. Owing to the depression Boyce declared that his income had been deeimated. His appoal to the couit was for a moratorium on his alimony payments but the judge was humourously adamant. "Wives," he decided, " have claims for support in order of their acquisition. If you continue your present course, and if your ex-wives are compelled to accept reductions in alimony as you acquire others, it is obvious that their incomes will soon approach vanishing point. "The court can readily understand that the payment of £3000 a month to two ex-wives and the prospect of a third payment is a strain on the resources even of a rich man, but hobbies are things that must be paid for."