The Dalles times-mountaineer. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1882-1904, 1889-10-26
Lending a Dual Life.
San Francisco Chronicle.

One of the queer things in the study OF
crime is that when an apparently new
kind of offense against law and morals is
discovered, almost all at once the CRIME
makes its appearance all around US, as If
1t were new form of epidemic disease.
There has been a good deal OF speculation
about this unquestloned tact, some stu
dents of socia! problem claiming that
imitation accounts for it, others that the
discovery leads to more extended research
and thus dIscloses what has existed but
has been kept hidden. Whichever theory
may be correct, the fact is certainly as
stated, and will probably continue to be
SO as long as law breaking exists.
Within the past few years there have
at least dozen cases been brought to light
of men leading ddal lives that is. men who
had actually two homes, two wives. two
sets of children, two classes of acquaint
ances, and some times two distant occu-
pations, it being understood. of course,
that each establishment was in perfect
and complete ignorance of the other.
Usually death has been the key which
has revealed the mystery, and has brought
forward two sets of weeping relatives oN
marriage to lay the last memento on the
bier of the dual husband, and then fight
over the disposition of the piopery; but
recent celebrated case in New York is an
exception, for the mans villlany has been
exposed while he was alive.
The reference is to Sheriff Flack, the
man who obtained the fraudulent divorce
from his wife and who has been indicted
by the grand jury for his conduct in the
affair. 1t turns out that he has been
leading dual life for seventeen years,
and that without any ones knowledge.
At his home in East Fifty seventh street
he was James A. Flack, while only twen-
ty blocks away he was Mr.. Raymond.
In each home, if such be the proper word
to use, he had wife and son, they hav-
ing been called Flack at one place and
Raymond at the other.
Perhaps the most singular part of thi
double existenbe is the fact that Fiack, as
Flack, ran for office in 1885 and again in
1883, being elected county clerk the first
time and sheriff the second, and no one
found him out 1t has been said very
often that the "fierce light which beats
upon throne is but tallow dip to a
calcium light when compared with the
searching rays OF in 5estigation which are
cast upon and around G candidate for Of
flee, and yet no one of Flack's political
opponents ever got hold of the story, and
it probably would never have been known
had it not been for his attempt to obtain
divorce fiom his lawful wife, to which
he was urged by "Mrs. Raymond" who
knew her position and repented of the
sin which she was committing; but in
order to clear her own skirts and 10 Sc
cure the position of the son of the unlaw-
full union, she induced Flack to commit
another crime ard to attempt to get rid
or his lawful wife by a fiaud.
No romance writer with any regard for
the probabilities would have ycntured to
devise such a situation. The unlawful
wife, desiring to make her illegltimate
son a religious teacher, induces her para
mour to attempt fraud upon his legiti-
mate wife in order that the child of the
unhallowed union may be legitimized be-
fore his entry into the ministry. Some
of the modern French novelists or dra-
matists might venture to create such
complication, but there are no English or
American writers of fiction, with perhaps
one or two exceptions, who would ven
ture to do it.
Such things throw strange side lights
upon human MATURE. They show that
reputation and character are two very
different things, and that man who Is to
all appearances reputable member of
society may be only a gross hypocrite.
ard that those who are seemingly his
most intimate friends, may only know
one side of the mans life and character.