“ MAN FROM TOWN. ”

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3200, 22 April 1911, Page 10

“ MAN FROM TOWN. ”

VILLAGE BEAUTY’S BREACH OF PROMISE SUIT.

The question of how judtly to assess the damages in a breach of promise suit has become a burning problem in New York as the result of the action of Mr. Justice Erlanger in denouncing as excessive the £2OOO awarded by a,, jury to Miss Henriette French, a bewitching voung woman from the little town of Pierre. South. Dakota. The defendant was Mr. David Decker, a successful engineer of New York, who, according to _,i.iss French, visited Pierre, fell in love with her, became engaged, and then returned to New York. ’ From New York Hie defendant wrote a series of rhapsodical letters in which the plaintiff was addressed as “sweet ■honey bunchums,” “dearest darling sweetheart,’' 1 and “glorious girl of the golden west.” Suddenly, however, his ardor cooled, and he married a New York cousin.. On this Miss French travelled 2000 miles to New York and sued him/ for £SOOO.

No sooner had the sympathetic jury allowed. *er £2OOO than the judge declared it excessive. “Except for tho hurt naturally arising from the breach of promise,” he said, “not- a dollar of damage was shown.” He invited briefs on the question of reducing the amount. Miss French’s brief on this subject was of remarkable originality. The argument she lays stress on is the glamor exercised on country maidens by a man from the great metropolis. “He comes out from New York,” she points out, “and all the girls are flattered by any attention lie shows them, because his manners and clothes and everything about him make him oh! so different from the men whom we ordinarily meet. So from being a very commonplace man in New York he becomes out west a veritable Prince Charming. “In due course hs returns east and forgets all about the girl whoso life is ever afterwards a daily agony owing to the sneers of either girls whom Prince Charming ignored, and the malice of the men whom she had neglected on his account.”