MATRIMONIAL AGENCY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 1349, 11 June 1907, Page 2

MATRIMONIAL AGENCY.

TWO THOUSAND LOVE-LETTERS.

Some amusing disclosures associated with the matrimonial agency known as the Mrs Edith Ross Society, at Philadelphia, were made a few weeks ago. James Marshall, 61 years of age, who generally wears a towering, flaring sombrero hat> is mnder an indictment for fake pretences, the charge being brought by one Marjorie Friel, who alleges that he married her; and appropriated all her goods and chattels, and that he has 100 wives scattered over the country, who are presumably in a similar predicament. Mrs Edith Ross nominally ran this matrimonial bureau, but Marshall, who posed as her father, appears to have been the guiding spirit in the concern. When Marjorie Friel invited the police into Marshall's home they made a remarkable haul. They seized no fewer than 2000 letters, answering Marshall's advertisements, "Wanted a wife, wealthy, refined, elderly gentleman alone, generous; will be a devoted husband. 1 Among these love missives were several from women asserting that they had fortunes of £20,000, who were pining for a home and ohildren. One wrote, "May this be. your Valentine, dear, ducky darling." Another said she ha*d a husband,' but was tired, of him, and wanted* new* one, with money enough to divorce the, bid; ' A widow; confessed, to being fair, fat, and forty, but said she was lonely. ' One girl, in her teens, admitted that she was not beautiful, ibut she was virtuous and "beauty was only skin-deep, anyway." 'Farmers' daughters by the hundred wrote that they were sick of country life, servant girls pleaded that they were weary of the kitdhen, school teachers declared that they were tired of teaching the young idea to shoot. Marshall had classified all these offers, those With dowries at the top, those with natural goodness at the bottom.