MIDDLE-AGED LORD.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 104, 15 April 1911, Page 1 (Supplement)

MIDDLE-AGED LORD.

AND HIS 17-YEAR-OLD BRIDE. NOTHING TO DO WITH THE “BALLY PUBLIC.” W'liv shouldn’t a Lord at forty-five wed an American girl at seventeen? John Graham Hope Horsley Beresford. B'aron Decks, peer of Great Britain. veteran of three wars, and holder of one of the most respected titles in Ireland, who recently married Miss Vivien Gould, daughter of George J. Gould, rf New York, and twenty-seven i ears his junior, very strongly resented the suggestion of an unsuitable disparity in age. ITis lordship, when - interviewed In New York shortly before the wedding, < xnressed himself sharply on this point. “Me--old? It’s all toinnivrot. WTiy, in England a man—especially if he has led an outdoor life, as fellows of my sort do -is regarded as young at fifty. Suppose Miss Gould is seventeen. What •,f it’

‘■ln London society marriages of young women of that age with men of twice their vears are everyday occurrences. It doesn't seem at all out of the ordinary to me, and I think that so long as Miss Gould is pleased and Mrs. Gould. I. might add— nobody else need be annoyed.” “WTirit is all the dashed row about, anvhow■?” he asked. “I never knew such a row over an ordinary engage r.ient. It’s most extraordinary. I don’t see that it’s any of the bally public’s business how old 1 am or how old my fiancee is.” It was pointed out that he is only seven vears less than thro:? times older than his bride, who had not yet made her debut ’i! New York society. Also because Miss Gould would take a dowi-v r>f mauv millions.with her to enrich the British peerage

“Dear me ”he said. “Tn England it is thought nothing of.” He then consented to tell how he won his prettv fiancee

“What an extraordinary question — upon mv life yon Americans are most astonishing. I won her quite in the ordinary wav, I should imagine. It was mv first courtship, you know. We met in the ordinary manner, and I cannot recall that then' was anything unusual iiboiit our qarly conversations. “I camo over to your Horse Show. I ’ike horses, and so doos she. and that «*stablishc<l :■ bond. Thon I told heabout the wars, and that interested fior. Rather like Othello and D-s--rlomona? Well, perhaps, but that’s 1 Lit flattering to me.

‘'That’s al! I om think of. I had nr, ospociai method of courtship, and it 'vns al! most natural and charming—most <-!m 1111 ing.”