SIX OR SEVEN WOMEN

About two or three weeks later a short man, a friend of the previous man, asked me to marry another foreign girl. This man knew I had already married two other foreign girls. He offered me £15 if I would do so. This took place in a public-house in the West-end. As in the previous two cases, he handed me the girl’s papers, and £3 for fees. The marriage took place, and I received the agreed sum immediately after the ceremony. I have not seen the girl since. In all I have married about six or seven foreign women in the way described, and received sums varying from £12 to £26 for each marriage. I do not remember in what order these marriages took place, but they were carried out in the following registrars’ offices: Lambeth, Marylebone, Shepherd’s-bush, Paddington, Holborn, and St. George’s, Hanover-square. I used names merely as they occurred to me. These marriages were arranged at the request of three different men, who were all friends. None of them are British subjects. On Nov. 19, 1916, I married an Englishwoman named Alice Chippenham, at St. Pancras Registrar’s Office. I then gave my correct name, viz., Arthur Lazarus. My wife left me about twelve months later, and went off with a Chinaman. We were then living at Bexhill. She is now living with an Italian, somewhere in Bloomsbury.

The prisoner, who told the magistrate he had nothing further to say, was committed for trial.