The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1889-12-12
SALTYEDGAR SALTUS
The Immoral Ways of a Very
Immoral Novelist.
RESULT OF THEORY AND PRACTICE
The Serious Charges that His Wife Bring
Against Him-They are very Definite
and Very Damaging.

lEXamlner D1Spatch-Speclal to THE HERALD.
New YORK, Dec. 11.-Let no one say
hereafter that theory has no influence on
practice. 1.-THE pace that kills." has been
too rapid even for so fiery young gentle
man as Mr.. Edgar E. Saltus, the author of
the novels for giddy girls to gloat over in
secret and to blushingly declare their ig-
norance of in public. He has been in the
habit of conducting his own little liaisons
in his private life and they have finally
brought him to the divorce court. The
novelist is in appearance fair type of the
fast New Yorker of the day. He is about
thirty years of age, possibly year or two
over thirty; rather under the average in
hight with pleasant though sharp features
and very dark. His hair is thick and
black, his moustache long and glossy and
his closely shaven cheeks are almost
blue from his heavy beard. He was
educated for the bar and was graduated
at Columbia law school and admitted
to practice eight or nine years ago.
Since then he has devoted more time to lit
erature than to Blackstone and the reports.
AS writer his books first began to attract
attention in 1884 or 1885, before the cratic
style came into great vogue. 1t was par
ticularly on account of their naughtiness
that they were first criticised, though they
were less daring and suggestive than some
of his latter efforts. They found fair sale
and he has since ground out novels periodi-
cally, though his health has not been very
strong. According TO common report all of
his books were profitable, and the more
conventional ideas of decency were over
stepped in any one of them. the better was
the financial result. Almost ever since
Bedford, Clarke q Co., of Chicago, opened
their New York house they have acted as
his publishers, and when they failed re-
Gently it was rumored that Saltus was
among the authors who suffered most Sc
verely. They owed him as much as $1,000
some people said, but this figure was prob
ably gross eXaggeration. Since then the
firm has effected some sort of compromise
with its creditors and has resumed bust
ness. The books they have printed for
him are "Tristrem Varick,n ga Transac-
ton in Harris" ''The Philosophy of Olsen
1.-THE Pace that Kills" and ga
Transient Guest" After his pub
fishers resumed, Saltus started for Europe
There was scene at his home Immediately
before his departure that might bear to be
fully described in one of his novels,
little domestic episode that might fifty
terminate the exploits of one of the lustful
characters he knows so well how to por-
tray. Indeed, his friends have long joked
about his taking scenes from his home life,
particularly in the case of pretty little
lady's maid in one of ais most recent
novels. 1t would not do to entirely
forecast all the novelist in painting the
scene at his home. There was storm
probably, a confession certainly and a
rapid drive to the steamship pier. This
happened in November. 1t does not seem
NJ, Hall C,1@
has begun suit for divorce, was entirely
ignorant of her husbands life and lived i'll
happy security before he made his con-
fession. When the novelist visited
Saratoga springs last summer every girl
in the place seemed to think that he must
be very, very bad man, and all sought
introductions to him and hocked around
him. Whatever Mrs. Saltus may have sus-
pected she now openly accuses her hus-
band of undue intimacy with two girls
during the period extending from June
1888, to November of this year. With
one of them, Elscow Smith, she charges
him with having been intimate at his own
home, No. 3611 Nineteenth street, at No.
IT'S Fifth avenue, at Mamaroneck, at Mil
ford, Pa, at Richfield springs, New York
and at aikeniside. The other name men
toned is that of Fanny Givvan, and the
meeting places specified are No. sc West
Nineteenth street and Coney island. Mrs.
SBltus made an affidavit alleging these
slips from the path of virtue on the part of
her husband and announcing his departure
for Europe. When he left he told her that
his address would be "care of John Munroe
& Co., bankers, Rue Scribe, Paris" But
after his arrival in the French capital he
wrote her letter saying he was going to
London without giving any address there.
Upon this affidavit and upon another made
by the driver who took the novelist from
his house to the French line steamer La
Bretagne, Judge Lawrence, of the supreme
court, yesterday granted an order allowing
Mrs. Saltus to serve summons in her suit
by publication.
Edgar Saltus' brother, poet known for
his dreamy sonnets and verses, rejecting
peaceful religious mind, died a few weeks
ago at his home on the Hudson.