A Much-Married Man.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 96, 4 June 1895, Page 3

A Much-Married Man.

The champion marrying man is cla med fur America, as well as the champion cyclist. His name -or his last one —was James Clark, and he has but one arm, bat that one has circled the form of many a wife of !rs own. tie was arrested and lodged in gaol at Baltimore for his last matrimonial venture, or rather for the ihf ft of the baggage of a widow whom he had married after a few days’ acquaintance. He holds the marriage record up to dale, as he has been credited altogether with sixty-nine wives, some of whom he married within a few weeks of each other, and generally with an acquaintance of less ths,n a week, sometimes of only a day. In addition to the sixty-nine with which he is credited, there are, as the election returns are sometimes reported, many other countries to be heard from, and it is quite probable that the fellow has made a century run m matrimony. His marriages seem to have been dictated by tbe sense of acquisitiveness rather than by the pure passion, of love, as it doesn’t appear to make any difference with him whether a spouse is young or old, native or foreign, Catholic or Protestant —All fish that comes to Ins net. His honeymoons are always brief, most of them not more than twenty four or forty eight hours, as he takes the first opportunity to steal away not only himself but his latest wife’s baggage, jewellery, and money. Sometimes delay is necessary to get her property converted in cash, but he usually gets there all the same. One of the first cases in which he figured, as far as the police are concerned, was in Baltimore eight or ten years ago, when he married a newly.lauded Frenchwoman and started with her for tbe West, where they were to live on his “ farm,” which had no existance. The couple reached Niagara, and the bride up to that time was very happy. She was not so happy the next morning, when she found that her husband had decamped with jewels and money to the value of l,ooodol (£200). He was captured by detectives within a week, but in the meantime he had got to Boston and married another woman. His story of love and desertion w'as published, and then came the deserted wives in platoons and in companies. The place where his last made wife was stopping was given out in the newspapers, and for several days the door-bell of that house was kept on a lively jingle by women who all asked for a one-armed, clean shaven, sixty-year-old lover wiih a cast in his starboard eye. The place was full of wives—wives long, short, and stout, wives hideous, wives beautiful. They talked loud and long, and one of them suggested they form a club. “ And he deserves a club, too !” fiercely declared one of the indignant women. Clark is pining in captivity just now and will probably bo convicted and sent to the State prison.