Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1879-01-01
THE STORY orr YEAR.

Tho Life of Emma Wells-striving to Flee
from Herself She Commits Crime, At
teMpts Suicide. and Is To-D Day '.At Home"
In the Ramsey County Jail.
Emma Wells left st. Paul last Saturday.
>. L. Bailey & Co., furniture dealers, learned
she had disposed of some of his furniture,
mortgaged, to Cochran, Third street
dealer in second hand articles. Bailey re-
covered his property. Goodman was out
WOO. He proposed to bring the girl back
ard prosecute her. Sae was arreste at
Worthington, Sunday, and returned to
TINS city vests rda~. A simple
statement of the outside facts. But back of
this are the motives, which drove the poor
girl to commission Of the offense. Hers is
story not unlike thousands of others, who
have slnned and then drifted out to sea.
Pity can be bestowed, because she is SO
young, and she has not drifted from home
and yirtnous mornings by long gears of sin
and shame One year ago, "Happy
New Year" sounded with sense
of appropriateness in her ear; to-
lEday, the New Year finds her unhappy, sad
and broken in spirit. One year ago she was,
by riaht OF her beauty. the reigning belle of
the village in which she lived. A bright,
though unsophisticated country girl, she be-
came mark, yes ard her whole life was
marked and marred by libertine. Her fall
occurring in the circumscribed locality in
which she lived, her misfortune was ire
trieyable. She fled from her home, and the
scorn of rivals. Coming to St. Paul she
tried to obtain employment. She failed. At
sea, she drifted out.
The girl talks of her last escspade with a
tear choked voice. She scarce knew what
she did she was fleeing from herself, as it
! were, from st. Paul, where she first began to
| debauch her womanhood. Love conquered
her at first; want mastered her here. She
| says she intended to make another effort,
| and did intend to return the money. Evil
IDENTIFY she was not aware of the extent of
her ofense ; she believed she was only evad-
ing for time, the payment of a debt,
nothing more. When she was arrested at
Worthington and was told how the law held
her oHense, she expressed establishment and
contritlon. So nervous, Frustrated and pitt
full did she appear, that the sheriff
took compassion on his fair prisoner
and instead of conveying her to Jail, locked
her up in the parlor of the hotel.
Alone with her thoughts, she recollected
what she had been, knew what she was. Life
| udo OoCOuo uuIt1ul 10 uGT. Inc Joy OF
youth had been SCARED with wrinkles deeper
than those of age, by sin. Homeless, help
less, a wanderer, an outcast. there was moth
ing left for her but death. How she prepared
to meet it, none know but her. She had the
means at hand to accomplish it. Taking a
revolver from her pocket she put it at full
cock, pressed the muzzle against her bare
breast and-fell. The thoughts of death,
the nervous prostration caused by her hope
less condition, was more than her over
strained system could stand; she tainted.
| -Four hours after her confine pent, the
sheriff tapped at her door; no answer He
then knocked, not sound"in response. The
door was broken open.
She is dead
Such was the terrible ejaculation. She
lay upon the floor, pale as death. In falling
the revolver had caught on her opened dress,
and reposed like sinister omen of death
upon her bosom. No one had heard the
fatal shot.
An alarmed and hasty examination was
made. She was not dead. She was revived
Revived enough to be brought back to st.
! Paul, to be arraigLed in the municipal
court, to be held i'll bonds of $3.50, to be
committed to Jail. The history Of one more
poor unfortunate.