Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1878-10-08
sHREWDNEss OUTWITTED.

HotO a Chicago Nan Committed Suicide
and Tried to Create the Impression that
He Has Murdered.
Mr.. Benjamin w. Fay, of Chicago, was
methodical, precise man, somewhat addicted
to debts and intemperance, to be sure, but
with clever vein of craft about him that
would challenge the admiration of profess
sional rascal. MIR. Fay, it seems, had not
been prosperous for some years, and when he
left his countingroom one evening last
week and walked down street, it was with
the idea of making way with himself, and at
the same time fastening the responsibility
upon some one else. Next morning his dead
body was found on the dock punched full of
bullet-holes, while his pockets were turn e
wrong side out, and the appearance carried
out the belief that Mr.. Fay had been set
upon by robbers, shot and killed. after which
his pockets were rifed and he left dead
man on the dock. There was no pistol
found in his hand, and the idea of self-mur-
der seemed preposterous.
But if the Chicago mind is fertile in the
way OF covering up things, it is also equally
productive in the matter of uncovering or
discovering them, and some of the more re-
spectacle people of the city thought it was
placing an unjust stigma on the low-caste
members of the robber profession to charge
them with numbering Mr.. Fay. He wasn't
rich, and had not been known for months to
carry any money on his person. He didn't
speculate successfully, neither did he gamble.
He didn't wear watch-chain, even, to at
tract the attention OF their class, ana was in
no way an inviting subject for the robbers
art. Moreover, he was moody and despon-
dent, and much more likely to make an end
OF himself than to get the job done by some
one else. Indeed, he had been known to
threaten suicide on several occasions, and as
his affairs were not getting any better under
the crushing out administration of John
Sherman, but, on the other hand, seemed to
be growing worse, they urged that MIR. Fay
would be, IN measure, justifable in taking
himself OFT as he had proposed. Having
this plausible theory to go upon, it was only
necessary to obtain the facts to support it.
SO they set about hunting for facts Mr.
Fay had died IN his tracks as it were, very
near the dock, and, though no pistol was
found by his side or in his hand, the theory
was advanced that he might have thrown
such weapon into the lake after shooting
himself. This was almost too violent an as
SUMPTION, because man, after firing four
bullets into his body, isn't supposed to re-
tain his presence of mind sufficiently to
throw the instrument of destruction away
from him. Still, there were those who
claimed that Mr.. Fay was an uncommonly
cool man, and would do just such a thing is
that And so they commenced fishing for
his little gun. A diver was procured and
dropped down through the thirty or forty
feet Of water which intervenes between the
edge of the dock above and the bottom of
the lake below. He wasn't down there long
before he found the pistol, and was drawn
up with it in his hand. But here another
curious circumstance was brought to light
Attached to the pistol was stout string. and
upon its being pulled out an iron weight was
found at the other end. Mr.. Fay had
planned his work admirably. He had
dropped the weight into the water, still hold
ing on to the pistol, and then fired his four
or five shots into himself, and as he dropped
to the ground dead man the weight pulled
the weapon over into the water, and both
sank to the bottom. He had previously
turned his pockets wrong side out, and,
with the pistol out of his hands and safely
deposited in the bottom of the lake, there
was every reason to believe that he had made
out first-class case of robbery and murder
on somebody. His life insurance would in
all probability be paid, also, which doubtless
gave him pleasant feeling of relief in his
last moments.
But it was not so. There never was man
so smart, even in Chicago, but somebody
else was smart enough to find him out. And
MIR. Fay's little game came to grief. The
society of robbers for once was able to prove
an 0tlbS, and, while the coroner was holding
his inquest, Mr.. Fay's widow was called upon
and identified the iron-weight which she had
seen IN the house frequently, and Mr.. Fay's
clerk who had also seen it in his possession.
and who, upon raking up his recollections of
events, recalled the fact that his employer
had once suggested that very plan as a good
way to slip out of the world, and, at the same
time, fix the responsibility for it on some
one else. And finally they were able to dis
cover the pawn-broker who had sold Mr..
Fay the pistol, and who had loaded it with
the very bullets that were found in his
cadaver. This was conclusive, and must
have been embarrassing to the disembodied
spirit of Mr.. Fay if it was perching unseen
any where in the purlieus of the coroner's
court 1t must have caused that spirit to
perish and hide its head in shame. He hadn't
made himself the smartest man in Chicago
Another had been smart enough to find out
the same.
New York Dry Goods.
NEW YORK, Oct z.
Business dull on account of Hebrew holiday Cot
ton goods quiet in agents hands, but prices nomi-
naly unchanged. Prints in irregular demand
Ginghams sluggish. Worsted dress goods in fair
request. Mems wear woolens quiet. Foreign goods
light demand.
Tramps in the South are burning cotton-gins