BRITISH PEERS AND AMERICAN HEIRESSES

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXVI, Issue 8074, 19 March 1901, Page 3

BRITISH PEERS AND AMERICAN HEIRESSES

The "tiier d;iy v.e were told by cable that the Duke of Manchester, who was lately married to Miss Zimmerman, an American heiress, was served with a writ im breach of promise on his return from his honeymoon, the claimant being Miss Portia Knight, an American actress. The following breezy comments by Harper's Weekly upon His Grace's marriage are of interest :

The great American ' newspaper-reading public is always interested in these alliances of American girls with European gentlemen of title. With friendly curiosity we like to know in what state of lepair our noble brother is, how much lie owes, and what prospect- there is that it duly financed he will stay paid up. Wt- wonder, too. what the lady's: famiJy thinks about it, and whether, ou the whole, it pays our girls to many dukes. Xo ease is known of an American father who wanted his daughter to many a foreign nobleman. The ladies usually" arrange these alliances, but the father in the end usually accedes to the inevitable, and does his part gracefully, taking pains merely that his daughter's fortune shall |>e .-icured to her benefit and that of her ii-.rs. s\'e don't know whether Mr ziiii-mt-nnan is pk-a.-td to have a. duke for a >"ii-m-law or not, but the duchess' grandiathtr. Mr Evans, has been heard from, and he speaks cheerfully of the peer, and isready to welcome him into the family. Wnether he is a good judge of dukes does n»t appear, but he has excellent judgment about horses, in which he traded extensive, ly and profitably during the civil war. As to the general question of the expediency ci investments in dukes and other peers, and attempts to domesticate them on the American plan, there is of course much to be said. The personal element is important, but perhaps not quite so comprehensively vital as it is in ordinary marriages, for the reason that if you ore a rich girl and many an ordinary man and he turns out to be worthless" you have nothing to show for your money, whereas, if you many a duke and he ceases after a time to tit a domestic comfort, you are still a duchess, and may possibly get some -soiace out of that condition. In England being a duchess seems to be regarded as a good job. That in itself it should satisfy the heart or the conscience or the mind of a woman in whom these organs are fairly well developed is not to be expected, but in minor particulars no doubt it yields a- good -deal of remuneration. It is like holding office. You get tc like it. Then there is the alternative to consider. Ohio girls who go to London and go into society there, as many have done, don't mind to go back to Ohio. Ohio is not satisfying to ambition in the later stages of its fruition. It does not hold its own after they are fully grown. .Any of us are willing to go and live in Ohio—to be born in Ohio if necessary—until we grow up and are able to do better. But when we get rich enough or f.imous enough to indulge ourselves, off we go to some place where there are ,so„ ciety and yachting.