The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-09-19
DEAD IN A CHIMNEY.
Pretty Mary Kenny's insane Flight
and Its Sad End. "a.

NEW YORK, September 1S.-Up to six
months ago there were not two better known
or more popular persons In the Seventh
ward than handsome Policeman James Ken
ny and his pretty young wife, Mary. Kenny
died last May, his wife became insane
through grief, and yesterday afternoon, after
she had been missing for 10 days, her body
was found wedged tightly in chimney of
her home at 173 Cherry street, where she had
died horrible and lingering death, separ-
ated only by the thickness Of brick wall
from her own rooms and from relatives and
friends who were well nigh distracted with
grief at her disappearance.
No one thought of looking down the CHM
ney of her own home. The chimney rises
about four feet above the roof Of the house,
but by stepping on wall that guards the
edge of the roof person could climb upon
the top of it without great difficulty. 1t is
divided into four 1ues, one Tor each floor of
the house. Each flue is about II by Is inches
in size. For week or so Mrs. Kenny's sis
ter, who has been keeping her fiat in order,
has been trying to have fire built in the
stove, but the chimney wouldn't draw.
Landlord Cunningham, when spoken to
about 1t. said he guessed 1t must be the
weather, and that It would be all right when
was started, but it wouldn't burn, and the
room was filled with smoke. 1t was con-
cluded that the chimney would have to be
cleaned, and Philip McAllister, of II Essex
street, was hired to do the work. He went
at it early yesterday afternoon, and the first
on the end of it down the flue to the Kenny
fiat. 1t went down about five feet and then
stopped. After he had jabbed awhile and
could get it no further, he concluded that
there must be something uncommon down
there, and, drawing out his pole, he looked
to see what it was. What he saw made him
drop his pole. Chamber into the cupola, and
fall down stairs as quickly as he could. He
sent for the police, and they sent for the cor
oner, and four policemen went to the house
to keep the gathering crowd cut. Meantime
Mrs. Kenny's sister and several of the w0m-
en- who live in the house had peered down
the chimney and identified the head which
they saw there, partly upturned and all be-
grimmed, as that of Mary Kenny.
The fue narrows little from the top, and
her position showed that in her insane flight
from an imaginary enemy she must have
climbed to the top of the chimney and let
herself down feet first as far as she could 90
and then became wedged there tightly. 1t is
possible that her struggles may have dis
lodged enough SCOT to have smothered her
and mercifully ended her suffering in an
hour or so, but the probabilities are that she
fingered there for days, perhaps, until starv-
alton and exhaustion put her out of her mis-
cry. Her position was such that she was as
If standing facing her own rooms, and had a
few bricks been knocked away from in front
of her face she would have looked in upon
her sister and other relatives weeping over
her disappearance. The cupola, the floor OF
which her sister tore up. is only five or six
feet from the chimney, and in her searching
about the roof her sister must have frequent
ly passed even nearer than that to the spo,
where she was imprisoned, probably still
alive. Her sister says she even leaned
against the chimney to look over the wal
down upon the roof of the next house. Hel
hand then was within foot or two of the
dying woman.