Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1877-09-20
GLEANINGS IN GOTHAM.
Melancholy Reflections Suggested
by the Fate of Amy PawCett.
The MlsiOrtunes Of Manager DAILY
and Others.

Special Correspondence st. Louis Times, 18th, j
New YORK, September 13.-The
dismal story of the last days of Amy
Fawcett, as told the other day in
the Herald, again reveals a social
phase that is lamentably common
in New York. 1t may be that the
statement about the unfortunate
girl having been murdered by the
drunken brute who occupied the
same apartments with her is an ex-
aggeration, but all other points of
the shocking story are believed to
be substantially true. Miss Fawcett
fell with terrible rapidity from the
high position she had reached on
the English stage. Before coming
to New York, little over nine
months ago, she had contracted an
uncomfortable appetite for liquor,
but this was not known at the
Fifth Avenue Theater, where she
was engaged. Nor did her appear
ance indicate it. l saw her at
the Fifth Avenue the night she
first played there, and beheld
a plump, vigorous young wo-
man who seemed an embodiment
OF robust health. She was twenty
three years old, and she looked even
less. A few weeks later she had
lost her engagement and was living
among strangers in a house that
does not seem to have deserved a
very good name. A besotted fell
low connected with the house was
her constant companion, and both
were maudlin with liquor fully half
the time. He abused her, took her
money, pawned her clothing and
kept her a prisoner in the house.
In the course of a few weeks she
died, and a coroner's inquest was
held on her body. The physician
who examined the body found many
bruises upon it, but reported con-
sumption and Bright's disease, and
in accordance with that report a
verdict was rendered. Then there
was an excuse for a funeral, only
three or four persons attending,
and the bruised body of poor Amy
Fawcett was placed where it should
never again be seen. The Herald
says she died of injuries inflicted by
her companion in his drunken rage,
but whether this is true or not she
certainly died a most dismal and
melancholy death for one who, only
a year before, was one of the reign
ing favorites of the English stage.
METROPOLITAN MORALS.
The social phase suggested by
Amy Fawcett's lamentable descent
and death did not need new illus
tration. 1t is a painful one to dis
cuss, yet it constantly thrusts itself
upon the attention Of all who keep
the run of life in New York.
Scarcely q day passes without bring
ing to light some shocking crime or
revolving scandal growing out Of
just such moral depravity as the
fate Of the unfortunate actress is
now made to illustrate. New York
fairly reeks with social rottenness.
Mormonism means moral rectitude
in comparison with the life that is
led by hundreds of men and wo.
men who keep up an air of respec-
liability. Even in high sOcialcircles
the relations which do not need
explanation are almost as common
as marriage itself. New York
hotels and boarding houses, from
the highest down to the bottom, are
infected with the moral disease that
it is an oflense to mamie. A gentle
man who has Travelled much in
Europe said yesterday, apropos to
the subject, that in this particular
sense he considers New York tho