BANKRUPT DUKE

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 29, 29 October 1928, Page 10

BANKRUPT DUKE

REMARKABLE EXTRAVAGANCE REVEALED LARGE INCOME GREATLY EXCEEDED DISCHARGE SUSPENDED BY REGISTRAR (Australian Press Association.) (Rec. October 28, 5.5 p.m.)) London, October 27. “It may be difficult to be economical when a duke, but at least one ought to behave like a gentleman,” declared the Registrar in the London Bankruptcy Court, when suspendins the discharge of the Duke of Manchester for three years. The story revealed in Court one of remarkable extravagance. The Duke failed a second time in 1916, his liabilities being £129,656, and his assets £2OO. Subsequently a shilling in the pound was paid. He admitted that at one period his household and personal expenditure was £72,000, which was £20,000 in excess of his income. His personal debts included £2859 owing to jewellers, £lB3 to tailors, £270 to hosiers, £lOOO hotel expenses, £916 in respect of a house at Gloucester Gate, £976 for tennis balls and racquets, and £1220 for ladies’ dresses. His counsel said the Duke succeeded to the title at an early age, and was brought up without any occupation. Everyone assumed he was enormously rich. It would be difficult for him to cut down his expenditure. The Registrar said an unmitigating circumstance was the people victimised, yet the Duke was in receipt of a large, income. It was a case of unjustifiable and reckless extravagance. [The Duke of Manchester was born in 1577 and succeeded to the title in 1892. He married in 1900 a daughter of Eugene Zimmerman, of Cincinnati.]