£l60 A MONTH ALIMONY

Greymouth Evening Star, 6 September 1938, Page 4

£l60 A MONTH ALIMONY

• MILLIONAIRE’S SON CENSURED. • NEW YORK. July 21. Basil Allen Ryan, grandson of the . coppep millionaire, was described as a . “pampered youth” and a. “drunken . playboy” by Mr. Justice Cotillo to-day in awarding the unusually high permanent alimony of £l6O monthly to Mrs. Martha Barkley Ryan, the young Southern girl whom Ryan married one night last November in North Carolina and left the next morning. Ryan, now in Europe, did not contest the action. “The husband,” said the Judge, “is

the scion of a distinguished American family, with a large income which he has never earned. . The defendant is, indeed, the counterpart of those little rich girls whose only ambition in life is to try to dissipate the fortunes created by their forefathers through the sweat and honest toil of American people. “The only difference in this case is That the recipient of any financial award will he an American citizen, rather than a broken-down, impoverished member of the so-called nobility. . “The defendant tired of his wife in one night and left her stranded and penniless. Then, after filling the public Press with stories of being trapped into marriage during a drunken spree, he did not have the manhood to face a. public trial, hut departed on u plc;..;uu trip to . .urope. “The defendant must be taught that American womanhood, no matter in how humble a station in life, cannot be treated as a. chattel and dropped like a discarded toy by a drunken playboy ’