The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1877-03-21
A VICTIM TO SCANDAL.

.. A VICTIM TO SCANDAL.
Vile Valentines Driving Sensitive Woman
to S'uicide--N1rs. Bowers' Fatal Lenp--Par-
ticulars OF the Ninth Avenue Trugedy.
"She seemed to rest her hands on the
side wall a moment as she leaned for
ward from the roof and looked down into
the street. Then she swung about side
wise in queer sort of way, all in hur-
ry, and hung over the area, her hands
clinging to the coping for an instant ;
then she screamed and fell" ...: y .
Such in brief was the description given
by Annie Norman, perhaps the only per-
son who saw her fall, of the manner in
which Mrs. Della @. Bowers came to her
death at the corner of Ninth avenue and
Nineteenth street on the evening OF
Washington's birthday; It was be-
ginning to grow dark when Mrs. Bow
ers fell, and her form appeared to some
who saw it in the distance Like a bun
die of clothing thrown from the house
top into the street. The noise of the
fall attrs cted quite q crowd from the
tenements, stores and workshops in the
vicinity, and as the people passed about
the woman's PROSTATE form the horror
of the scene .crept through them and
pictured itself upon their eager faces.
"What's the matter?" els she dead?"
"How did she fall" busy tongues not
more earnestly than eager eyes in
quired. But there was no one there
then to say how it happened. She had
fallen. She was insensible: or at leaet
appeared so, and probably would die.
AS her shattered form was lifted from
the street and borne to her apartments
the crowd pressed about the door and
edged more closely to the central point
to find out all about the woman who
fell. ~ -
Mrs. Bowers lived at No. 153 Ninth
avenue, was married and the mother of
two children, aged about eight and ten
years respectively, and her death is con-
sidered to be of her own seeking, IN
spite of the implied contradictions pre-
sllmed to exist in the fact that she was
much respected by all her neighbors as
a good Christian and an exemplary wife
and mother. To an over sensitive dspo-
sition is charged the mental condition
which led her to precipitate herself from
the roof of house forty feet high into a
narrow area, just rallied in from the open
street. It was q frightful leap-from
which the stoutest heart, In sane mo-
ments, would recoil with shudder.
What could have driven good, peace
full, Christian mother to take such fatal
plunge? ... ....
THE VOICE OF SCANDAL. 49,.
The sting of scandal Such was the
generally accepted explanation put in
circulation shortly after her death by her
neighbors and acquaintances, few of
whom pretended to know the history OF
the whole affair. Reports say that on
Valentines day (February 14) Mrs.
Bowers received from female neighbor
some offensive caricatures with accom-
panying lines of scurrilous character,
written by the sender. The language
used was very harsh, and Mrs. Bowers
worried greatly over the matter. She
showed her husband what she had re-
ceived, and told him from whom she sus.
pected the slanderors messages to have
come. Unlike his wife, Mr.. Bowers did
not see enough in such silly malicious
bit of business to give him any cause for
worriment. He advised her to give no
heed to the matter. Two of the valen-
tines were said to have had respectively
the captions: ga Seamstress " and
"In Love with Every Preacher" But
what the accompanying lines we're has
not been stated.
Mrs. Bowers was constant attendant
at the Sixteenth Street Baptist church,
and after time the story of the scurrilous
valentines, mingled with some further
scandal, got to the ears of the congrega.
ton, and it's circulation there capped the
climax of her modification. Meanwhile
the more talkative of her neighbors had
heard of Mrs. Bowers restiveness under
the lash of these painful stories and kept
astir the petty gossip which the sender Of
the valentines gave forth at first. Grad.
ually the poor woman's nerves gave way
under the ordeal until few days before
her fatal leap, when she even refused to
eat, so much was she exercised over the
scandal. Her friends did not entertain
any serious apprehension, however, and
the thought of. suicide by 80 devoted a
Christian and 80 well conducted wife
never entered the head of any one.
3 Mrs. Bowers resided in the first house
from the corner; and it is considered
strange by some of the neighbors that
she should have gone to the roof of the
adjoining house to precipitate herself
therefrom, with snicidal intent, when she
could as easily have thrown herself from
the roof of her own house. 1t was NO
very unusual thing, however, for the in
mates of No. 153, in which Mrs. Bowers
resided, to pass over to the roof of the
corner house. But a flying rumor which
could not be traced to its source yesterday
lent some importance to the foregoing
comments. This rumor would have it
that some one, the gossips could not say
who, had seen woman's figure retreat
ing from the roof of the corner house TO-
ward the scuttle of one of the houses
above Just as Mrs. Bowers fell to the
ground. It is not pretended that any
one pushed Mrs. Bowers over into the
street, but if this rumor were found to be
fact, and the person fleeing from the
roof should be identified, there is found
here as strong a chain of circumstantial
evidence as many on which convictions
even for murder have been obtained.
The dying woman's last words were:
"Mrs. - - is the cause of this. -
New York Herald.
Who Owned It.