Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-11-14

COL u HOWARD Wells, by Name.
NEW YORK, Nov. 13.-October II an an
onymous letter was sent the editor of the
Wall Street Ne1cs, asking the enclosure be for
warded Jay Gould, the well-known fnancier
The letter addressed Gould was also anony-
nous and read as follows:
sWindsor Hotel, Oct. II, 1sS1.-Jay Geuld.
Sir: 1t is my painful duty to inform you that
within six days from date of this letter your
body will have returned to dust, from whence
it came. 1 therefore entreat you to
make your peace with God. and
you. This is no wish of mine to take you life,
but am inspired and requested by the all liv-
ing God to do so as public necessity and for
the benefit of the community at large. You
must undoubtedly be aware you have been a
rogue of the first water all your life, and by
your artful cunning and deceit you have
robbed thousands of people of their birthright.
You have had no money. You have robbed
rich and poor, father and fatherless, widow
and orphan, ,ndiscriminately of the last dollar,
and through your villalny have brought ruin
and destruction on thousands of fami-
lies. All this you have done
by circulating false reports, bribing news
papers, making false statements, committing
perjury and by artful cunning and deception.
In fact you have robbed both great and small,
that your death is public necessity in order
to save thousands OF others from pain and
destruction. Your death will be an easy one,
for propose shooting you through the heart
if possible, and If my first shot is not instant
death, will give you the coup de grace with
a second shot, so that your death shall be
quick and easy. So don't hold out any hope that
l. g. g 1ak% g. - IT.
bing purposes, for do not owDh single share of
stock OF any kind. Neither am 1 interested
in any. This is simply the will of God, and
he has chosen me to carry this out. He has ap-
peared to me in a dream, and requested me to
slay you as public necessity, and in doing so
God has assured me it is by divine providence
l am chosen to do this act, and that by doing
so shall become public benefactor, and I
have sworn and taken solemn oath before
the all-living God that 1 will put you to death.
l intended to have shot you last Friday
yesterday, when saw you with Dillon and
Sage. had my pistol ready and cooked, but
a voice from the Lord sounded in my ear,
saying hold on; give him time to repent, lest
he descend into everlasting punishment
Now make your peace with God and prepare
for the fate that awaits you, and may the Lord
an agent of the Lord. The Lord appeared to
me again last night and said, Jay
Gould must surely die and when reas oned
with the Lord in my dream I told him my
life would also be required, and would be
hanged, the Lord assured me no harm would
come to me; that the, rope was not made,
neither was the hemp grown to make rope
to hang me with, and that he would deliver
me out of the hands of my enemies. This is
by the express will and command of God that
am chosen to put you to death,
and I have sworn before the all living
God, the great Jehovah and
Redeemer of the world, and taken a solemn
oath and kissed the holy bible, that will
carry it out within six days from this data, if
opportunity occurs. Therefore, be prepared
to meet your fate at any moment, and may
God have mercy on your soul.
remain, sir, AN OLD VICTIM.
N. B.-Should | not have an opportunity
within six days, will surely DO SO the first
opportunity that occurs.'
Gould gave the letter to his broker, Wash
ington E. Conner, and directed every effort
be made to find the writer and punish him.
Conner gave the letter to Inspector Bynes of
the detective force, and they began devising
means to capture the rogue. Personals were
inserted in the newspapers which drew from
the unknown writer number of other letters
in which he by times threatened Gould and
implored him to help him win back some hun
dreds of thousands of dollars which
he claimed to have lost in stock
speculation. He sent Gould key by which
personals could be published, using cypher
words to be used in place of names of stocks,
by which Gould could give HIM information
on which he could speculate safely. Follow
ing this key the inspector and Mr.. Conner
kept up q correspondence with the black
mailer until to-day. Meanwhile it
was discovered that all the letters
sent by the blackmailer passed through Station
sE," 34th street and Sth avenue, and plan
was formed to capture him. The postmaster
fifty carriers in citizens dress were placed at
the disposal of Inspector Bynes. To-day the
carriers assembled at Staten E at an early hour
this morning, and were met there by an equal
number of detectives. Soon afterwards each of
the fifty letter boxes in the district were
watched by detective and carrier. Whenever
person dropped letter into the box de-
tective kept watch on the person until the
carrier had gone to the box, opened 1t and
read the address on the envelope. It was
agreed if the carrier found letter addressed to
Gould the carrier was to raise his hat and
detective was to arrest the person
who had deposited the letter.
The secret was closely kept
At 8 p. N. tall, well-dressed man of 60
years dropped a letter addressed to Gould into
his box at Thirty-foarth street and Seventh
avenue nc was arIesteu at Once au0 tdktu
to police headquarters, where he ad-
mittsd his guilt He gave his ad-
dress as Col. J. Howard Wellea, 365
Fifth avenue. He would not give any further
information about himself and it was ascer-
tanned afterward that the address on Fifth av-
enue was not his present place of residence,
though he had at one time boarded there. He
was SO much distressed by his arrest that he
was watched closely tonight for fear he would
commit suicide. 1t is said tonight Gould
would prosecute Welles.