Monthly Archives: January 2018

Injuries & Close Calls!, Rescues!

Leaped from Brooklyn Bridge for $25

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December 5, 1886

Leaped from Brooklyn Bridge for $25.

 

NEW YORK, Dec. 5.—Another Fourth-ward man yesterday jumped from the Brooklyn Bridge into the East river. The affair was kept a secret, and the facts did not leak out until late in the afternoon. Michael J. Hess, a laborer, living on Oak street, was the hero. He was picked up by a friend who was waiting in a boat. Hess was conscious. He was rowed ashore and carried to a saloon, where stimulants were poured down his throat. He revived from the shock, and said that in the period between leaving the bridge and striking the water he was not conscious. Hess left the saloon and walked through the streets in his wet clothes to get home. He drank more whisky and got into bed very drunk. He is now doing well.

From the Collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
The 1886 Morbid Scrapbook

Suicidal Death!, Suicide by Bullet!

Young Finn’s Jealousy

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December 5, 1886

YOUNG FINN’S JEALOUSY.
He Tells His Adored to Call at a Hotel,
Where She Finds Him Dead.

 


NEW YORK, Dec. 5.—Thomas F. Finn registered at the West Side Hotel, Sixth avenue and Fifteenth street, on Friday evening, and got a room for the night. When it was entered yesterday morning he was found lying on his bed with a bullet hole in his breast and a discharged revolver in his hand. He had been dead for hours. A letter addressed to the landlord of the hotel stated that he was going to take his life, and asked that in case he failed to make a good job of it, he should be sent to the New York Hospital.

Finn was twenty years old, and has been a head messenger for the Mutual District Telegraph Company. He committed suicide through jealousy of the attentions by young men to a girl named Kitty Daly, twenty years old, who works in Stein’s silk factory. The suicide left a note which read:  “K.D. has been the cause of this. She will understand all. Finn.”

The girl says she knew him since childhood. For a year past the couple have kept company. She refused to marry him once, but kept up the acquaintance. He was of a very jealous disposition. He met her on Friday by appointment, and said he had intended to kill her and himself, but Father Wall, of St. Agnes’ Church, had been trying to dissuade him, so he had told the priest that he would let the girl live, but made no promise about himself. Upon leaving her he told her to call at the West Side Hotel next day. She went there yesterday and learned his fate.

From the Collection of The Comtesse DeSpair
The 1886 Morbid Scrapbook

Misc. Accidents!

Froze To Death. Another Drunkard Gone.

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February 2, 1867
Froze to Death. Another Drunkard Gone.


Mr. Thomas Warner, a man of superior intelligence and information and once a minister of the gospel, froze to death, while in a helpless state of intoxication, near Elysian, Le Sueur county, on the night of the 16th of January. The day previous to his death and most of the night he had spent in a saloon in the village and left for his home, near morning, in a state of intoxication. When within one hundred rods of home, he commenced falling down every few rods until at last he was obliged to crawl on his hands and feet, which he did until he got within ten or twelve rods of his own door, but could get no farther, then falling forward from his crawling position died. He leaves a very interesting family.

Thus another victim to intemperance has gone − perished in a snow bank, almost at his own door, and the tears of the widow and orphan are falling and aching hearts are almost bursting in breasts that know no comfort.

We have been fearful for the past winter or two that we should have a similar case to the above to report, as having occurred in this village, but so far, thank God, all have escaped, but no one knows for how long.

Culled from the February 2, 1867 issue of the Chatfield Democrat (Minnesota),
as reprinted in Coffee Made Her Insane.