LIFE OF LUXURY

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 461, 1 July 1937, Page 3

LIFE OF LUXURY

INCURABLE HABIT £BO A Week To Rain London, May 16. After a married life of luxury, just over 12 months of widowhood reduced 'Mrs. Dorothy Ealand Roylance to bankruptcy. She had' been married nine years, dujing the latter part of which her husband, a Manchester produce merchant, spent between £6O and £BO a week. He spared her no luxury. When she became a widow her income was reduced, but she wa& comfortably provided for under her husband’s will.

After two hours in the witness-box at London Bankruptcy Court explaining debts totalling over £lOOO she told a reporter: “When my husband wag alive everything we could wif.h for wp« provided for the children and myseli. Perhaps I got into the habit of luxury. Afterwards I just, couldn’t manage to put the soft pedal on the spending.”

In court Mrs. Roylance had to answer questions about cheques the h-a-a given to hotelkeepers when she had no money in the bank, and about having a three-weeks’ holiday with her children in Belgium and then not being able to pay the bill. “I was foolishly extravagant,” she told the registrar, “but I did not stop to think how the money was going.” After referring to her husband’s rate of spending She was asked: “Do you remember ever, during your husW jand’s lifetime, asking for money and *,iot getting it?” “I can’t remember,” she said'. “We certainly lived very, very comfortably.”

It was. stated that Mr. Roylance left his wife/ a legacy of £5(10 and tne income for life from the residue of the estate, valued at nearly £20,000, Subsequently she was appointed managing director of the business at £5OO a year. Ih addition to dividends on securities forming part of the estate, she expected about £lOOO a year from dividends on shares in tlje company and was allowed £125 a quarter in anticipation of this. It was put to her in cross-examina-tion that she was “giving cheques broadcast’ when she must have realised they could not be cashed. She replied that she was expecting £lOO from a friend. The registrar asked her to give the name and address of this friend. “I am. .afraid? I cannot/, for personal reasons,** she said. She.agreed, however, to write the information on a piece of paper, which was then handed in.