Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-12-06
TIE GOBLIN KNIFE GRINDER.
The CurtOua Romance Revealed by
the Tragic Dsaih of Jacob Mas.
sOth, hunchbRck.
New York Herald, November III

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The Tragic DsaIh of Jacob mas.
sOth, hunchback.
New York Herald November I'll
Of the people frequently met with
in the streets whose eccentricity of
manner or deformity OF person
mark them out as objects of curl
osity or pity, one who for years past
was a sort of bugbear for street
children, yesterday figured in a
tragical sense that will hide him
from the public gaze forever. His
name was Jacob Massoth, and he
was a knife grinder by trade. All
over the east side of the city he
could be met, a curious old man,
hunchbacked and squat of figure,
with a dark, wrinkled face, from
which pair of eyes looked that had
a malicious twinkle in them. He
was active, though, and strongly
built for all his deformity, and he
carried about his wheel and utensils
with an ease not to be looked for
in man OF sixty-fiye. The chill
dren in the part Of the city he lived
in knew him well, and Jacob was
generally followed home every day
by bevy of Shrieking little crea
lures, to whom he was known by
the suggestive name of "the COB
lin" Nothing of the hunchback's
private life was known to the pub
lie, of course, till the tragedy of
yesterday revealed it. Then this
curious, ugly old man came forth
from his obscurity, when death had
ended his career, in the role of a
lover. Strange as it may appear,
Massoth, for the last seven years,
has been the favored, though illicit
lover Of a woman who has borne
six children, and whose husbands
death, four years ago, was fastened
by his suspicion of her passion for
the hunchback knife-grinder. To
some few these facts were known,
but it was only yesterday afternoon
when Captain McCullogh and Pa
trolman Flynn burst through a
crowd in front Of No. SIT East
Thirteenth street, and, guided by
women's shrieks, found in the base
ment the hunehoack weltering in
his blood, that these disclosures
found their way into the glare of
publicity. A murder had been done,
and that, too, by a young man of
seventeen, who stood in the room
there, with his mother and sister,
and it was when his motive was in
quired into that the truth appeared.
The person who stands before
the law amenable for the death of
Jacob Massoth is named Geo. Dell.
He is the oldest of the six children
Of Katrina Dell, German woman
forty-four years old, who seventeen
years ago came to this country from
her native place, village in Hesse-
Darmstadt. In her younger DAYS,
when quite a child in fact, she be.
came the object OF the affections of
man twenty-one years her senior.
Whether her lovers unattractive
person failed to win favor in her
eyes then Or not does not appear,
buV certain it is that when Jacob
Massoth came to this city seven
years ago a man of ffty-eight, to
no degree improved in appearance,
Katrina Dell forgot her position of
wife and mother and began an in
timacy with him which has lasted
ever since. Katrina herself, a dark,
stoutish, low-sized woman, is by no
means > Venus, but Jacob was un
remitting ip his attentions, and
wooed the object Of his alteration
with ali all the ardor of a young
Lothario, Wherever she lived he
made his place of residence. II
she located in a garret he occupied
q lower floor; if she was in q front
house be had lodgings in the rear,
and as soon as a suspicion of the
Dell family'S moving was heard Of,
Jacob began to pack up his nova
bles at once. This could not pass
unnoticed. The local gossips, OF
course, uttered shrewd suspicious,
prying neighbors kept up a con,
slant surveillance, and the loves Of
Jacob and Katrina became a topic
of interest NThereYer they appeared.