HAS KISSED 40,000 WOMEN AS DUTY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17864, 4 June 1926, Page 4

HAS KISSED 40,000 WOMEN AS DUTY.

“ MARRYINGEST SQUIRE ” OF INDIANA LIVES TO TELL THE TALE.

In the tiny country seat of . Crown Point, in the State of Indiana, wjiich has been referred to as the Gretna Green of America, lives a man who has kissed between 35,000. and 40,000 women. And the remarkable thing about it all-is that fie lived to tell.it. However, there are kisses and kisses. And the kind that Mr Howard 11. Kemp bestows beyond the portals of his own home are strictly in line of duty. In fact, they are official kisses. For kissing is part of Kemp’s business as the “marryingest squire” on earth. It is said of Mr Kemp that he has tied the marital knot more times than any man alive. Since he became a Justice of the Peace thirteen years ago, he has celebrated almost 40,000 weddings. And . with every ceremony he has given to the blushing bride her first kiss. Yet he has been very careful not to receive one in return. “Although,” says Mr Kemp, “some newlyweds do get fussed and make mistakes which are not their faults nor mine.”

By his trade, profession or business of supplying benefit of clergy to love's young dream, Mr Kemp has built a tidy business which knows no slack and an equally tidy fortune. Multiply 40,000 weddings by the average fee, which seldoms runs less than £1 and frequently is raised to £2O levels by a new and well-to-do, generous husband anxious to make an impression,.

Eight Hundred a Month. Mr Kemp isn’t so sure about other world problems. But he is positive that the institution of marriage will continue till the crack of doom. “Brides are all the same,” he says. “They were the same thirteen years ago as they are now. All of them want And the man who supplies it will live longest because he will be happier after the bridal corsage has wilted Mr Kemp's average month seldom runs less than S()0 weddings. And business is often so brisk that he has to call in assistants.

The office of Mr Kemp resembles a wadding assembly plant. There is a reception room, a wedding parlour and a place where Cupid’s records are kept. Piles of empty wedding ring boxes that the “marryingest squire” has collected fill several bins and the overflow is sufficient to heap twenty waste baskets to the brim.

Folks go to Crown Point to get married and have Mr Kemp perform the ceremony, because Crown Point, for years, has been the eloper’s paradise of the middle west. It likewise affords, as it has afforded for a generation, safe matrimonial haven to residents of nearby and border-states whose laws forbid new marriages too often after divorce. Successful Marriages. Mr Kemp tries to make, all his marriages “take” and he claims that nearly 94 per cent have been permanently successful, 4s his “follow-up” records prove. He has married men who became millionaires, statesmen, professors, and once he married Rudolph Valentino, on one of that actor’s ventures into the wedded state. To the women, Mr Kemp savs: “Don’t pester him. Treat him like his mother used to. And don’t forget to feed him well.” To the men he gives this advice; “She’ll like pretty hats, son. . Buy them. Take her out at least once a week. £>on’t forget this day every year. Apologise to her though you are right or wrong. And never forget the daily kiss. Petting after the ceremony is what keeps couples united and the divorce courts empty. So ‘by all means pet,’” Mr-Kemp tells his clientele.