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NEW YORK HERALD, TUESDAY, OCTOBER 25

MRS. DUKE GETS FINAL DECREE; $100,000 ALIMONY IS REPORT

Cruelty and Indignities Alleged by Daughter of Major A.J.D. Biddle.

Special Dispatch to THE NEW YORK HERALD

PHILADELPHIA, Oct. 24.--Mrs. Cordelia Biddle Duke, daughter of Major Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, was granted a final decree of divorce to-day from Mr. Angier B. Duke, son of Mr. Benjamin N. Duke and nephew of Mr. James B. Duke of New York.

The decree was issued formally by the Court of Common Pleas No. 1 acting on a master's report recommending a divorce on the ground of cruelty and indignities.

The general charge was not contested before the Master. All the evidence in the case was impounded and for this reason a report that $100,000 a year alimony had been agreed upon could not be verified.

Mrs. Duke started suit against the son of the tobacco manufacturer on June 16. Formal severance of the marriage has been long expected since the couple separated in 1918.

They were married in February, 1915, in Holy Trinity Church, Rittenhouse square. The bride was seventeen years old. Shortly after the wedding the engagement of Mrs. Duke's brother, Mr. A. J. Drexel Biddle, Jr., to Miss Mary Duke, sister of the bridegroom was announced.

Since the separation three years ago the young couple have avoided being in the same city at the same time. Mrs. Duke lived in New York while her husband was in Florida or elsewhere. When he returned to New York she took a residence in Bryn Mawr.

Mrs. Duke has possession of her two children, Angier B. Duke, Jr., and Anthony Drexel Biddle Duke.

[[image - black & white photograph of Mrs. Duke]]
[[caption]] Mrs. Cornelia Biddle Duke. [[/caption]]
 Photo by Geisler & Andrews.
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