AN OBLIGING YOUNG MAN.

West Coast Times, Issue 7287, 7 January 1889, Page 4

AN OBLIGING YOUNG MAN.

HE MARRIES A GIRL TO KEEP HER OUT OF A CONVENT.

A romantic tale of love and war was unfolded before Jmlire Collins receutly. Mrs Mary Alice Priest, with her attorneys, Gen. I. N- Stiles and ex. Judge Barnum, was before the court as o^xaplainaut ia a bill askiug tbat her marriage with Ferdinand A. Priest, of Henderson, Ky., ba declared void ah initi About four yeara ago Mra Priest's father, Patrick Cuuningham, and her stepmother. May E. Cunningham, separated. The father obtained from Judge Tuloy an order giviutj him the cußtody of hia two child feu and directing that they be palced in the Academy of the Sacred Heart. Strangely enough, Mrs Priest, who was then baioly Bix.teen years old, olung to her stepmother, and, to escape the order of the court, went with the latter to Kentucky. As the father could legally follow and reclaim her. a marriage was arranged by her stepmother and frieads, to which, fearing her father would shut her up in a convent, she assented. Ferdinand A. Ptieat, a young Kentuckiao, was found chivalrous enough to sacrifice himself to save the girl from the fate she feared, and without any conrtahip, and less than twenty four hours' previous acquaintance, the two were married before a Justice of the Peace Jan. 6, 1885. The couple never lived together or sustained the relation of husband aud wife, and Judge Collins, after satisfying himself from the authorities presented that the decree aßked for was the proper one, granted the prayer of the bill.