The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1878-04-12

In yesterdays HERALD appeared an ac-
count of one of those domestic difficulties
which furnish the greater part of the bust
ness of our police courts. Mr.. and Mrs.
Fogarty, married couple with three chill
dren, were the principal actors in the scene,
and as usual the complaints were re-
ciprocal. The wife alleged that the hus-
band. after having deserted her and left her
to her own resources for number of years.
had returned and was endeavoring to seize
upon the little she had accumulated and to
usurp the ownership OF grocery store she
had established with her own money and
through her own exertiona The husband
insisted that he had constantly sup
piled his family with money, that
he had a Just ownership in the store,
and that his wife was endeavoring
to get rid of him for other reasons. Right
was evidently on theside Of the woman, and
the Police Justice, after giving the couple
some good advice, subsequently refused to
grant warrant against the woman on the
husbands representation that she had
locked him out Of the store. Fogarty left the
police office in an excited state of mind, and
about one o'clock yesterday morning turned
the drama into tragedy by numbering his
wife and cutting his own throat 1t is
thought that he intended to take the lives
OF his children as we'll, although there does
not seem to be anything on which to base
such supposition. At all events they
were awakened by the struggle between
their parents, and escaped into the street.
If any doubt exists rs to the insanity of
the perpetrator OF this frightful murder and
suicide it must be removed by the letter
which he addressed to the HERALD before
the commission Of the crimes, and which is
published elsewhere in our columns In
this singular communication highly re-
spectacle lawyer who was retained by Mrs.
Fogarty to guard her interests the Police
Justice who protected the wife while acting
considerably and kindly toward the hus-
band ON employee Of H. X. Thurber & Co.,
who had befriended the woman and her
children, and the murderer's own son are
all bitterly denounced as responsible for
the tragedy. The accusations are the evil
dent rawlings of lunatic who regarded
everybody who had been kind or service
able to his wife as his own enemy.
1t would appear from his letter to
the HEnALD that Fogarty only intended
to disfgure his wife for life. AS he evi-
IDENTIFY designed suicide he could have had
no object in pretending such a purpose if
he had determined to murder her outright.
On this theory it is possible that the woman
awoke when the acid was poured over her
face, and that her screams and struggles
completed the maniac's frenzy, causing him
to plunge the knife again and again into her
breast, thus completing his cruel work. It
is evident that the murdered woman was
respectable and deserving and that her
husband was the reverse. The tragedy has
it's moral and should serve rs q warning in
those numerous cases in which domestic
quarrels, probably slight at first and
capable of adjustment, are nourished and
inaamed by liquor until they end in some
such terrible catastrophe. If the chamber
Of horrors in Forty-secopd street, with its
CHASTITY corpses lying in pools Of blood,
could be exhibited in our police courts, the
sight would no doubt settle many o COM
plant without the intervention of the law
yers.