Gypsy Sells Docile Husband To Woman For $5,000 In Gold

1920

Wife Says She's Selling Mate at a Bargain as She Had Paid Same Sum for Him Herself — Declares It Is Tribal Custom and Perfectly Proper

DES MOINES, Iowa, Jan. 1. — Peter Guy, gypsy, formerly the husband of Mary Guy, another of the wandering tribe of Romany, is now the property of another woman.

Peter was sold by his wife for $5,000 in gold, in addition to the property the two had collected in their wanderings.

The bill of sale was drawn up in the office of a local attorney, and at the same time an agreement on the division of property was also made a matter of record.

The three parties to the eternal triangle appeared in the lawyer's office and stated their wants. After he had recovered from the shock, the attorney asked for explanations.

"Oh, not necessary," Mrs. Guy said. "This woman, she want to buy my husband. She have enough money, I don't want him any more, so I sell him."

Says It Is Tribal Custom

She went on to explain that it was the tribal custom, and all of them seemed to think that the proceedings were perfectly legal. The wife asked if her husband could now marry the woman who had bought him.

When told by the attorney that he would have to obtain a divorce, she merely smiled and nodded.

The sale was not the first one in which Guy had figured as human chattel, his former owner told the lawyer.

"Oh, I paid $5,000 for him myself, and I am selling him cheap," she is said to have remarked.

Besides deeding his property to the party of the first part of the sale, Guy gave her the custody of their three children, naming as the only condition that they shall not be taken out of the United States.

Are Dressed in Splendor

All three of the parties to the out-of-the-ordinary sale were dressed in barbaric splendor, with Mrs. Guy the most ornate, the attorney says.

Besides the usual trappings of her tribe, which included a vivid pink headdress, the wife wore a string of gold coins as a necklace which must have been worth at least $500, according to the attorney. In addition, an Austrian kronen hung at the end of each of her tightly-woven braids.

The gypsies live "all over the United States," they told their legal adviser.

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Jan. 3, 1920, p. 3.