WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 301, 15 May 1911, Page 6

WOMAN'S WORLD

(Conducted by "Eileen.") WHERE RUNAWAY COUPLES ARE MARRIED. London as the modern Gretna Green! There are more runaway couples married in the great city than in any other place in the world. A Pimlico boardinghouse is used exclusively by English couples about to enter the bonds of matrimony, and the guests of several similar establishments in other parts of Lonlon are Continental lovers who come there because they can not or will not wed in their own country. Veritable homes of romance are these places. To one of them came a Colonial in a tearing hurry, who said that he must be married on the following day. The proprietor—whose business mainly consists in making arrangements for marriages for a fee of £lo—smiled, bowed, saw the parson, and as a result the gentleman was married the same day. AX ORIENTAL PRIXCE.

Another wedding was rushed through less expeditiously, but still far too quickly for the requirements of the English law. Just as the couple, who knew nothing about the laws and had left everything to an agent, were about to return to the Continent, the bridegroom—a German naval officer—discovered that the ceremonv which had taken place was not legal. So they remained in England a week longer and were then legally married.

A remarkable union took place between an Oriental prince—a Mohammedan—and a Roman Catholic lady. When she reached England she was accompanied by a retinue of relatives—no fewer than nine of them—who had jovirneyed with her to protect her interests. Arid so. in fact, they did. For by the marriage settlement they bound the prince to forfeit a large sum (duly deposited in the Bank of England) if he married another woman while the object of their solicitude was alive. Much sensation was created in Berlin by a marriage which took place in London a few years ago. The bearer of an ancient title won the heart of a German millionaire's daughter. As the girl's family were opposed to the match, the couple fled to London, where they were married. Then both made some painful discoveries. The bridegroom found that his wife had only £I,OOO a year, while she learned that his title was fictitious and that he was a professional cardsharper. He has since been associated with a gang of international swindlers.] OVER SEVENTY. I

The Berlin gossips were little leas agitated by another runaway marriage. Tn this ease a German official who had passed his seventieth year came to London with one of his servants—a girl of about twenty. Despite the disparity in age, they were married in orthodox fashion —. by banns. They had to be in England eight days before these could be published, and then, of course, three weeks had to elapse; but they nevertheless wailed till t'"! Inv permitted them to be unite'! in church in the usual course.

Why did they come to London for so commonplace a method of being married! Merely to avoid the publicity, inseparable from the publication of banns in Germany. In (hat conntrv b;inns are published, not. in church, but in newspaper s and on the church doors, and Hit' age, social status, parentage, etc., of the contracting parties are set forth with a fullness which, in this instance, would have been distinctly embarrassing. HAPPY EVER AFTER.

Altogether about a thousand flee to London from the Continent —mostly from Germany, though among them are many Russians, Austrians and Swiss—every year. Some remain in England only seventeen days, but the majority stay for a month. And most of the couples pass through the hands of two agents, who make fine incomes by arranging their marriages.

FEMALE SUFFRAGE. A glowing account of tlic benefits that woman suffrage lias conferred upon New Zealand is given by Ella Wheeler Wilcox, the American poetess, sue quotes as her authority a man she has met, but whom she does not name—"an educated man .... born and bred in New Zealand and knowing his subject thoroughly." She cites his opinion that female suffrage has been a brilliant success in New Zealand. "It has been a death blow to drunkenness. Men still drink—some of them too much—but alcoholism and its attendant evils have decreased 90 per cent, in New Zealand since women began to vote. Wo have proven that, while corrupt men may buy< the votes of sons and brothers and* fathers of drunkards, the votes of mothers, wives, sisters and daughters of a drunkard cannot be bought. Women have always been the greater sufferers from the drink evil, and they have proven powerful factors in this special reform movement. Our women are benefited intellectually by their privilege of voting. They are better comrades, wives and mothers through their larger outlook on life. Far from neglecting their homes anil families, our women have developed higher ideals regarding these subjects." To this panegyric the poetess adds her little note of comment: "Surely our American women who are so earnestly working for equal franchise should feel encouraged at such a report, coming directly from, headquarters and from a man. All success to them and their cause."