ROUND THE WORLD FOR A WAGER

Hawera Star, Volume L, 10 January 1931, Page 16

ROUND THE WORLD FOR A WAGER

JLJ A VING returned to the place he started from two years ago, Mr Harold Bay Wright, a young Australian, is now in Southampton at the end of a round-the-world journey as a result of a wager with his fiancee. , In August, 1 iiliS, Mr Wright met at Southampton :m American girl. Miss Beryl Matthews, of Oklahoma, who had just completed a world tour. Tne couple became engaged after a short acquaintance.

Mr Wright had himself travelled extensively, and while discussing places that each had visited, he suggested that a tour such as she had just experienced could be accomplished by a resourceful man with little or no money.

Miss Matthews took up the .challenge and “dared” her fiance to attempt the feat. The result was a wager of £IOO that Mr Wright, starting off with £5 in his pocket, could not complete the same journey without borrowing money or drawing furtnc on his own financial resources.

The rest ot the story was told by Mr Wright.

After Challenge by Fiancee

“As a matter of fact,’ ’lie said, “I found the task comparatively easy. “The itinerary of Miss Hatthews' tour was not at all out of the ordinarv. Although it. is wnat tne travel agencies invariably describe as a ‘round the world’ trip, it was not really so extensive as that suggests. “J visited exactly tlic same places as my fiancee had done, but in tne reverse direction. I hold a third mate’s ‘ticket’ and this helped me a great deal in working my passage from place to place. “On several occasions I found myself without money, but I was always sufficiently fortunate to get temporary work. I have tackled nearly a dozen different jobs, and I actually arrived back with more money than I had when I started off—£l7 more, in fact.

1 “My fiancee is now in America, i icturn there immediately, and after I have collected my £loo—which, by the way, will be handed to some charity —we go to my home in Australia, where we are to be married.”—“Sunday Chronicle.’*