IN CENTRAL AMERICA

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19732, 29 December 1926, Page 4

IN CENTRAL AMERICA

DIVORCE MADE EASY NO CONDITIONS AND SMALL FEES , A city in Central America where divorce is the prinicpal “industry’’ and > where the hotels and lawyers offices are crowded land prosperous owing to | the never-ending flood or divorce-seek- ■ ers from the United States, is describ- j ed by Dr. Thomas Gann in his new book, “Ancient Cities and Modern I Tribes. ’ ’ j Dr. Gann is one of the greatest autho- j Titles on the mysterious Maya race. } which inhabited Central America some ! two thousand years ago, with a calendar . and a civilisation of their own. | The citv of easiest divorce is Merida, the capital of Yucatan, and there flock | all tyypes of Americans seeking freedom from husband or wife. “The fees arc small,’’ writes Dr. Gann, “and no cause need be adduced beyond a wish by either party to be freed from their matrimonial chains. Only a short residence in the State by 1 the applicant is necessary. “Specialists.” “I had not been long in Merida when I was approached by a lawyer, who volunteered to assist me in any matri:monial trouble, and later, in the plaza, wbs introduced to a gentleman who handed me an elaborate professional card upon which was inscribed, beneath the name of his firm, the following legend: ‘lnternational Lawyers, Specialists in Yucatan Divorce Law, Facilities in Mexico city and New York City. ’ “To tho Indian, the divorce crowd, men and women, arc in dress and deportment a revelation, but the Maya, down-trodden and exploited though he be, is not without a slaving sense of humour. “We dined at the best and largest hotel in Merida, and found there a considerable concourse of pretty ladies on divorce proceedings bent. Some of them were accompanied by their prospective partners, whom they had alrelady selected for a fresh matrimonial venture. . . To these poor pilgrims from the United States of America, suffering under the restrictions imposed by Messrs. Mann and Volstead, Yucatan must, indeed, appear a little earthly paradise.”