Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-12-15
A FAMILY WHO KILL.
A Horrible Family Tragedy IN the Sums
of Chicago.


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The Cannons came of a family in whose
veins there gurgles nothing but bad and
mischievous blood. They live on the North
Side, at No. 81 East Erie street, in q dingy
and yillainous looking building, which is
numerously Inhabited by rats, lice, dirty
children, and crowd of tenants who blear
at a respectable looking person suspiciously.
The missionary has never put his feet across
the threshold of that place, or if he has the
bedlam within drove him away. The Can
non family consisted of the mother, whose
age is p st the half-century mark; John
the elder son, aged 81 years,
They all drink, ut the most of the swill;no
has been done by John and his mother. The
result of feud between these two on yester-
day morning at 6 O'Clock is an awful warn
ing, and is as strong an instance of the total
depravity which shadows ignorance and in
temperance as was ever traced upon the
criminal page. John had been out all night,
spreeing wherever he could deadbeat a drink
or bully it. He was traced along Chicago
avenue, on kinZie street, ard about half
hour before he struck his mother he was
seen reeling like storm tossed vessel toward
the howell which had nothing in it to signify
home, but which, nevertheless, was the only
haven he had when everybody else had
kicked him out. He staggered in. In half
hour after woman screamed. Her younger
son, Tom, awoke and came into her
room. On the left side of her neck were
three long gashes, from each of which the
llfe-blood was squirting, causing her to pre-
sent horrifying picture. Tom alarmed
nelghbor, who went for physicians. He told
them his mother had attempted to commit
suicide. But the old woman raised her
skeleton hand, and from her bloody throat
there gurgled denial of Toms lie. Then
Tom said he had heard his mother and John
in an angry dispute, but he could not or
would not tell the nature of it. A Times re-
porter questioned the gray haired old wo-
man, but, with some maternal instinct still
left in her, she, too, denied the cause, and
only gave John away by saying: ooh, John,
why did you do this?"
The gashes were stitched, and the old
form, marked by dissipation and care, and
perhaps trouble, laid back upon a black and
uninyiting place of rest, while Tom sat be-
side her with his hands folded, his eyes fixed,
and a strange and incomprehensible express
sion upon his hardy face. John left
as soon as he had done his inhuman Job. He
was seen to cross the Chicago avenue bridge
about $50 O'Clock A. NJ, going west.
He is not a stranger to the dark things of
life. His associations were such as drifted
into crime and seethed and fretted for
trouble. He was companion of Mike Mad
den, the thug. He was with Madden last
July when they both assaulted and cut, al
most to death, William Baruth. saloon
keeper, on the corner Of Illinois and Wells
streets. Officer Bowen afterward attempted
to arrest Madden, and only overpowered
the assassin and thug by put
ting a death-shot into his heart.
John Cannon was arrested twelve years ago
and sent to Joliet for burglary. He came
out after serving his time apd has worked
along the docks as a wheeled, for iveli-
hood, when not engaged in Singing and
holding up peaceable and inofensive citi-
zens. Last summer he fell from ssrun'' in
coal yard and broke his leg and still goes
on crutches. His brother Billy, now dead,
led him in the crooked way. He was thief
and slugger. He was arre,ted for q bur-
glary, sent down, fell into consumption
and died in convict's suit. Tom is said
to be the only one of the trils who aHecrs
honesty; probably because ne has be-
come ashamed of the carnival of dissipation
and hell which seems to pervade the place
they hal for home. John has girl living
on Halst5d street near the viaduct, who is
his companion at ssshindigs'' and in dissipa-
ton. 1t is supposed that she is secreting
him somewhere. Capt. Gund and his lieu
tenants are upon his track. They say the
family is VIGOROUSLY dissipated and exceed
ingly quarrelsome, the pests of the neighbour
hood in which they live. The physicians
say the mother cannot live