Fantastic Story of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Alimony in the Dizzy Capital Where Law and License Never Clash B -s. i\ (j^j*

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I 1 f| & / '49R I It’s an Old Reno Custom s IMvorrrr’s Joyous Salute to the Washoe County Courthouse in Gratitude for Her HHBcBH*w; I • i New Freedom. j:’#i#ißnl 1 -1 fUa JBBNb m ~#U ! with far more to save a home from breaking up than win a woman. Any number of them

" ’ * >: -' also agree that a man is far more concerned "? . | „¦s&;.*» BS* , jjf 4m f sfflr over the welfare of whatever children there may lx? than is the divorcing . 1 ZSfr-¦ is#w£* lwr«fe£ w) # This may be sex loyalty on the lawyers’

'•- -* HHl9Kf'' sM*¥£*- 1 - **£W part, but case records put up a strong argu- * •*• B _>, -»» * favor. # ¦ ment in their : 5jF . . b&S&S^B 'When a woman decides upon a divorce, it is almost invariably because she hopes to better herself, most lawyers agree. She w > wants to ix-tter herself financially or emo- >f tionally. Divorce, with the majority of wo- to the testi- "”*‘*^^™l *—i men, is simply a matter of advancement or mony of the gain in one or both of these situations. She five top- is hard boiled and realistic about the matter, flight attorneys who have told me this story at chase a Size Twelve Rainbow in black-market and very few tears enter into the business of various times since 1 came to Reno. nylons and false eyelashes. changing mates. The num)x*rs of men and women equipped with But the percentage of such plaintiffs is surpris- This is pretty disillusioning stuff to discover and a “spare” who come here to spend the legal six ingly small when all the returns are in. Contrary not very pretty to set down on paper. But it is the weeks are large indeed, if not actually in the to all the legends, the vast majority of men and distilled essence of the wisdom of the one group majority. A “spare” is tin* euphemistic name given women are here to divorce one spouse and marry of men who are experts and who know. the man or woman with whom the plaintiff is living another as quickly as possible. at the moment and whom he or she intends to When the former Barbara Hutton, now Mrs. HAD a little experience myself. There was marry when the decree is granted. Cary Grant, dissolved her first here to I’VEa more than middle-aged dumpy little woman my hotel. She aroused the sympathy and pity This explains ihe reason there are no house the late Prince Alexis Mdivani, she was at once in fooling! married to her , Count Haugwitz- of everyone in the place. All of her children were detectives in Reno. And don't think I’m A second daughter married, in Kcventlow. grown and her youngest was she conscientious house dick a Reno hotel would to cause a revolution or break the institution The former Fifi Widener shed Milton Holden one told us, so she had at last come to Reno divorce either declared had become an intolerably cruel with his overtime. moment and the next married her present husband, what she late Delphine Dodge, the husband. And I don’t mean just the auto courts and the Alex Wichfeld. When the motor heiress, cheap hoarding houses. I especially mean some of car divorced James H. R. Cromwell One day he was kinrfness itself, she explained, wife, former Doris Duke, - the ix\st Reno hotels catering to the swank divoYce i whoso second the and the next day he tossed her downstairs. Natu- trade both What you do in Reno is divorced him, also in Reno, last December), she rally, she objected to the days on which he did the from coasts. the Ray linker, sweet, your as long as not public. immediately married Into who once tossing. She was gentle and oldish, and we business it’s in was Nevada State penitentiary and aging Although even that scarcely holds true. The warden of the all wept over her. Finally, her husband later Comptroller of the United States Treasury. our surprise, he looked to be very mild most embarrassing episode 1 have ever seen any arrived. To place was in a swanky cocktail lounge, just off the and self-effacing. * lobby of a fashionable hotel. I am no school girl, VY/ELL, what the nation’s social and financial “But then, you never can tell,” we all agreed. hut the behavior of the couple was so flagrant that leaders do, Ruthie Roe and Dottie Doe can do, He begged her to return to him, but she was at the end of five minutes I fled. The fact that I fled too. And they do it. The thousands of unknown, adamant in her refusal, and we all backed her up in is not significant, but the fact that neither the middle-class and lower case women who come here her tearful determination. When he finally left, to management nor the other customers found any- for almost always plan-to remarry at once return East, he told the hotel management that thing unusual in the erotic scene this couple put or are about to close an early matrimonial deal “mama” was to want for nothing. He would guar- on. is for it was a scene that would have caused with some likely prospect. antee any and all bills. This seemed to be very any New York dive to toss the couple out bodily or “A woman doesn’t want to give up what she’s sweet of him, but then we remembered those al- call the police in a hurry. got in the wav of a meal-ticket until she's certain ternate days on which she said he threw her Considering the reaction of the natives. I sneaked she’s got something else at least as good and usually down the stairs of their home. hack to my suite feeling like a combination of Mrs. better,’' Reno’s sardonic lawyers agree. It was not until three days before her decree was Grundy and the late Queen Victoria! Women have left not one shred of illusion about granted that we learned that "mama’’—yes, that attorneys themselves in the minds of whose offievs dumpy mama was supporting a “spare’’ in By a woman little despite all this, there is tragedy in Reno, they turn into a confessional. the time rooming house just a little way down the street. r,a,n office, he cannot a l>’ there is heartbreak. Bitter, scalding reaches Reno and her lawyer's She married her young gigolo ten minutes after stem confessional flood of talk that she turns heartbreak, and tears shed by women and men, the her divorce decree was granted by the court. too, whose have gone to pieces through loose on him. In Reno, they’re never, never too young tells all. If their or no fault of their own. They are in Reno to dis- Wittingly or unwittingly, she too old! solve a bad marital bargain and an intolerabl> cruel male clients fill them with contempt, their women, situation as well. clients fill Reno’s legal lights with general despair It would N* callous to deny that there are women and distrust of the whole female sex. Next week Miss Robb will tell how one woman here whose busy, successful have tired of Many of this wise corps are convinced that a divorced two men in two days, and married a third following the State them and brow beaten them to Reno while they . husband not the ants-in-pants client will put up the day, all Within of Nevada. TIIF \MlltM \\ UIFkI.V 19