The Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1877-1885, 1881-06-20
RUNNING AWAY FROM MARRIAGE.
A Suicide who Tried to Make Himself APP
pear Murdered.
From the New York Times.

1 ASNNA
He was a profound philosopher who,
when he heard of mans being in trouble,
criminal or otherwise, asked, "Who was
she?" For he knew that sooner or later,
a woman would be found at the bottom of
the tribulation. 1t is probably susceptible
OF mathematical demonstration that ninety
nine out of each ope hundred cases of
mysterious disappearance, for example,
may be traced directly to a feminine infiu-
ence. In some instances to be sure the
mysterious disappearer has run away be-
cause he was thief or a defaulter. But
for whose sake did he commit the crime
which made him vagabond and fugitive?
Is it not to the discredit of some of the
gentler sex that the chances largely pre-
ponderate in favor of some one of them
being the cause of the criminals undoing
1t is not woman's seductiveress, but mans
weakness, that causes the mischief Many
an honest and innocent woman has wrought
a mans ruin without knowing it. Many a
man has made a fool of himself for a
woman who would despise him if she knew
to what lengths of folly he could go.
Not long ago citizen of Germantown,
Pa, who had passed the meridian of life,
and who was engaged to be married on a
/ certain day, suddenly disappeared The
wedding day arrived, but not the bride
groom. He was in middle life, a respect
able citizen, and well fixed" as regards
money matters. Naturally it was supposed
that he had been foully dealt with-robbed
and murdered, perhaps. The fearful bride
elect postponed the wedding, and offered
large inducements for the production of the
remains of the bridegroom-elect, of whom
she was bereft. In due time the lost one
was found alive and well, in distant
1 part of the country. At the last moment
his courage had failed him. He did not
dare to marry the woman to whom he had
pledged himself, and like a coward he had
run away from the hymeneal alter. Why
| did he not face the music and say, Madam
| don't love you well enough to marry you.
| Let us throw up this engagement before it
is too late" Rather than say this he ran
away, and thus gave the gossips topic
| which has not yet been used up, unless the
| Germantown gossips differ from those of
every other locality.
The number of men who have mysteri-
| ously disappeared on the eve of marriage
has become so large that the newspaper de
| tectiyes ask, whenever they hear of mis-
sing man, if he was about to be married.
Whether men engage themselves thought
lessly and afterwards repent, or women
ensnare men in the meshes matrimonial
to the chagrin of then victim, we cannot
undertake to inquire. In any event, the
cowardice of men who run away from
marriage is established beyond dispute.
Indeed, this cowardice has sometimes as
sumed so violent a shape as almost to be-
come virtue, paradOxical as this may APP
pear. For example, a recent mysterious
homicide in San Francisco may be quoted.
A well-dressed man, dead, with a pistol
shot through the heart, was discovered in
vacant lot. On his person was paper,
signed Nv. Ii. Ward, and which was in
the form of q confession. The case as
then presented, was tina Ward. having
killed several people, among them being
one F. III. Bates of Salt Lake City, had
finally killed himselfin an agony of remorse
On this dead man were found memoranda
showing that the aforementioned Bates
had been engaged to young lady in Salt
Lake City, and the supposed suicide, Ward,
left explicit directions that the afianced
bride of the murdered man should be mott
fed of the violent death of her lover and
of the suicide of his murderer. A trunk
containing the personal effects of Bates
had been previously sent to Salt Lake City
addressed to the young lady, avowedly by
the murderer, as appeared by the memo
randa found upon the person of the suicide
In this trunk was found Bates diary,
entries in which referred to the diarist's
good fortune his ample supply of ready
money, aid his suspicious of Ward, whom
he referred to as "a clever thief.
This did not seem a mysterious case, al
though it must be acknowledged that muir
derers do not usually commit suicide
under the influence of remorse, nor do
they commonly manifest great concern that
the friends of their victims should be in
formed of the fate of the missing ones
The persistence of the post-mortem requests
Of the mysterious suicide aroused suspicion,
and, to make a long story short, it was
proved beyond a peradventure that the
man who killed himself in San Francisco
was none other than f. Fl. Bates,
who, being unable to fulfill his
promises to the young woman to
whom he had engaged to marry, commit
ed suicide, have first invented an elaborate
scheme by which it was made to appear
that he had been married for his money. |
He had represented himself, when q suito- |
as being in comfortable financial circulI- |
stances, although he was poor. Attempt |
ing to better his condition, he had been |
disappointment, and he took his own life |
as the shortest way out of the difficulty |
having contriyed q plan, which, as he /
thought, would save his honor in the esti- |
nation of his affianced bride.
If this story were told in a work of fc |
ton 1t would be denounced as improbable.
Yet judicial inquiry has established the
fasts as above narrated. The psychological
phenamena connected Herewith we leave
to the study of others Here was man
who having employed false pretenses to
win the hand of young woman. was too
honorable to carry on the deception any
further, was too cowardly TO acknowledge
his weakness, and was yet courageous
enough to take his own life IN order to /
draw the veil of oblivion over all. After
this, almost anything may be believed of
men who have rashly committed them
selves to matrimony, and have run away
from the consequences of that step,