New-York tribune., 1921-07-07
Judge Rescues
Youth and Calls
His Wife " amp
Declares He Must Not Be
Stripped Of His Little
Fortune to Pay $4,000
of Her Bills for 3 Months
Says It's Story for Films
Wartime Romance of Yale
Man and Its Wreck Are
Barred in Queens Court

Justice Norman Dixie said yesterday,
in decision handed down in the
Queens County Supreme Court, that if
vamo was what he thought it was.
Elizabeth Darrow Ryo1 was one and
her husband, F. L!nde Ryon, o. Flush
her eXtravagant debts.
The decision was in suit which
Ryon brought against John Wanamaker
Inc. to recover mortgages aggregating
$4,000 which he had pledged with the
firm as security for the payment of
debt of $l6,292S1 which his wife ran
the return OF the mortgages, Justice
Dixie said that there was no fraud prac-
tlced by the firm with which they wer,
pledged.
Court Calls 1t Plot for Films
"The evidence discloses an amazing
| situation he said LAS defendants at
torneys have properly said in their
brief, the story requires the pen of
| novelist | might even add that, as |
look at it, it requires the pen and i'm
agination of a scenario writer. The
grlevous situation here disclosed has
been brought about by the unconscion-
able acts of young woman who pos
sessed in the highest degree the clever
methods of the trained adventures and
in whose hands this refined and credu-
lous plaintiff was her easy prey. l
have not found in any up-to-date die
tionary a definition of the word
vamp, so frequently and currently
used nowadays, but if the word can be
defined as a female in pursuit of the
w nh ioa1 OF
marked as her moral qualities are miss
ing, then ! may properly term the
woman In the case a vamp.
Sees Tragic Clima~
"Her calculating activities have re-
suited on the one. hand in the tragic
establishment of very credulous
young man, who, through her, has seen
his little fortune shattered and his
hopes of happy married life destroyed
and, on the other hand, in the serious
financial loss that must follow if the
plaintiff in this action is to salvage
what remains of his depleted property
the two mortgages now in the pos
| session of the defendant"
Justice Dixie said that he was in1u-
enced in no small degree in his de-
cision by the fact that While Mrs. Ryon
had bought more than $4,000 worth of
articles at Wanamaker's, in three
months her husbands total bill there
for eight years prior to his marriage
was only $51515
Mr.. Ryon is the son of A. M. Ryon,
of Flushing, who is in the coal bust
ness At present the young man is Wis
ltng friends in Ossining, N. Y. He left
Yale to enlist in the navy when war
was declared, and it was while he was
on shore leave, in February, 1919, that
he met the young woman who became
his wife.
They met in motion picture theater.
She told him, it is said, that she was
helress to an estate of Sl,0O0,OOO and
had become estranged from her family
because of her determination to make
good her claim to her fortune.
million Dollar" Quarrel
When they were married two months
afterward Mr.. Ryon remarked upon the
absence of her family and she told
him, it is alleged, that it was because
OF the million-dollar quarrel. Ryon
was discharged from the navy the fol-
lowing July and rented an apartment on
Riverside Drive. Soon afterward, it
Is said, his bride began to borrow con-.
siderable sums from him, saying that
she needed the money for legal ex-
penses in connection with her firht
for her $1,000,000
When expensive trifles began to ar
rive at the apartment in alarming
quantities. she is alleged to have ex-
planned their presence by saying that
they were wedding presents from friends
who had just heard of her marriage
Her husband ran across a few bills,
howeer, and read her severe lecture,
which brought promise to buy no
more goods on credit.
He still opened packages when he
found them, however, and, on opening
one bulky parcel, discovered it con-
sisted of bills from Wanamaker's ag-
gregating more than $4,000. When he
demanded an explanation, his wife said
that her health was ruined and she
was going away for rest and kind
trea tment.
Evidence -yas introduced to show
that she went to California and that
hotel proprietor in that state had
her arrested Oh charge of defrauding
him.