The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1878-04-30 00:00:00

A NEW YORK RACHEL.

Visitors to New York when being taken along
Fifth-avenue and shown the sumptious buildings on
that famous street, always have pointed out to them
a gorgeous mansion, with gaudy shades, which stands
isonspicsoualy at the corner of Fifty-second-street.
Rare in vulgar splendour, and in the midst of
and churches. dwelt for many years the most int=
woman in York —Madame ReetelL In a nefarious
calling,practiidng under the guise of a Woman's doctor,
among the highest and wealthiest circle—for with
none other would ohs deal—else mimed a fortune,
and her almost regal equipap was one of the sights of
the Avenue and the Park. During forty years she
practised her shameful trade in &lance of law, through
the too cosy method of corrupting New York justice
having been of ten brought to bar, but rarely punished.
Her character and career were known everywhere,
and though the tribuals of justice have not
been able to finally punish her yet her Founish
bet were ever brought to trial. Finally, in 1817. an
Indisputable owe was found opiate her and became
a mess celebrs. Leading lawyers were retained for
both prosecution and Mince. The trial lasted 18
days, ending in her conviction. Then every possible
method of legal ingenuity so well known in New
York was resorted to for averting the penalty, but
It wee unavailing, and she wise sentenced to the
Penitentiary for one roar. Mort& in her behalf did
apt end, however. For over eight maths bra counsel
haled the law came sod provrabsd her being sent
thsra, Wks the IsTsirdon lamps

used in kw behalf, sithosith they ooald not otonsthe
tmrd.r.. could still mitkrate the rigours of the
Incarceration. Her husband was allowed to pass
almost all his time with her, she living chiefly in the
Warder's apartments aniertting her meals at his
table. Elbe was randy lock in a oell or compelled to
wear prison garb. So notorious became the favouritlein
that the Common Council had the case " invest4ated "
by a committee, and recommended the Warder's
dismissal, though the Ca= never came to any.
thing. This woe the last successful attempt made
to punish her, and during BO yews, until within a
few weeks, the officers of the law seem to has
abandoned all attempts against her, beyond an
occasional and sooneilenoed complaint. About 25
years ago, when the ground was first obtained for •
magnificent new Roman Catholic Cathedral on Fifth.
avenue, this woman's career hai become such a public
scandal that the great Archbishop of New York,
John Hughes, openly denounced her from the altar of
the old Cathedral. The Archbishop, desiring to buy
an adjoining plot of land for an archispisoopal reed-
demo", Madame Restell, in revenge, determined to
thwart him. The land on which her house now stands
was the piece desired, and representatives of the
Archbishop and the woman-doctor bid against each
other, the later running the prise up to a figure too I
high for the former and 'souring the prise. She
announced her intend= of building a redden°s there
at which the neighbours were horrified, and offered to
buy her off for 150,000 ads., then ootsidered an enor-
mous price for the land. But she refused, built her
house, and at once moved into it. Here she grew In
wealth, amassing a fortune estimated at 1,000,000
dollars to 1,500,000 dollars, practising her profusion
almost without restriction. Of late years, however,
she gradually withdrew from the "business," and her
husband dying two years ago, she sr= left with two
grandchildren, who lived with her. The great success
In crime always leads to the means of its detection.
The criminal, from impunity. becomes careless,
and We was the case with Madame Restell.
By an ingeniously devised scheme Mr. Anthony
Comstock, the agent of the Society for the
Suppression of Vice, in February last gal= daces= to
her in her own house, and got her to sell him some
Pink Powders, and inatruments, she at the same time
explaining their method of administration, use, and
effect. She was then arrested, and, after moth
difficulty and a brief imprisonment, procured bail.
Since February she had been combating the law
officers, but her arrest having excited great public
Interest., she was not so powerful with the courts and
bailiffs as she had been in earlier life, and her OW
progressed Seedily toward, convictioo. Three weeks
ago she changed her lawyer hoping for better reunite'
but the owe was set down for trial at the opening of
the next term of Court, Monday, April L Shammed
to be stricken with horror at the approach of the trisl,
and apparently became demented by brooding over it.
When the c nirt opened the criminal did not appear,
but instead the judge was handed a telegram an-
nouncing that she WM dead. This was thought an
"April fool joke," but it wee soon confirmed from
ether sources, and the case was postponed. The in-
famous woman was indeed dead. Early In the morning
she had gone from her bedchamber to her bath, and,
reclining in a bath of warm water, had cut her throat
with an ivory handled carving-kaifa When her
grandchildren discovered her she had been dead
several hours. Thus miserably died this notorious
woman, after a career of splendid crime that New
York tribunals seemed unable to successfully cops
with.