Omaha daily bee., 1889-06-09
IS DIR. CRONIN DEAD?
A Howling and Startlingly New
Theory Sprung.
NOT HIS CORPSE IN THE SEWER.
Overanxious Friends Too Precip-
itous in Accusations.
SOME STRONG POINTS INDICATED
A "Stiff" From Some Medical College
Planted For Him.
INSURANCE PEOPLE INTERESTED.
He Had a Craving For Notoriety and
an Intense Hatred For Alex.
ander Sullivan-Too Me-
| thOdical Evidence.
INSURANCE PEOPLE INTERESTED.
A Newspaper Sensation.

N newspaper 5euSaViOus
CHICAGO, June S.-lSpec:al Telegram to
THE BEE. THE Times this morning pub
llshed remarkable story, which has set
some people to thinking, and has recalled to
their, minds some mysterious incidents in
connection with the disappearance of Dr.
Cronin. 1t was o'clock that Saturday night
when he is said to have been called from his
Office. At Q the next afternoon his friends
were flooding the newspaper offices with
Cronin's printed circular to prove
that he had been murdered, ana
insisting that he was the victim of foul play,
etc. When Long sent the first Toronto spe-
cal reporting an interview with the doctor
on Monday, the same friends who had dis
tributed the circular on Sunday became fu-
rious, instead of rejoicing at the prospect
of finding their friend, as naturally would
have been the case under other circum-
stances, and Immediately denounced the re-
port as pack of lies and insisted that the
doctor had been murdered. In fact, it ap-
peared that they would much prefer to have
his dead body found than the live doctor in
Toronto
The man who drove the wagon says the
trunk was hurriedly loaded into the wagon
and driven straight to the lake. where it was
to have been taken in boat and sunk in the
middle of the lake, but when they were dis
covered in the act of unloading they retraced
their steps and hurriedly pitched the naked
body into catch basin. 1t would seem that
the body would never have been stripped had
they intended to sink 1t IN trunk IN the
lake, and one of the theories set afloat
by this mornings story is that the doctor first
prepared the circular to pave the way, or
to explain the cause of his proposed disap-
pearance, circulated 1T where it would reach
the public, and give the impression that he
had been murdered in Chicago, and thus stop
the possibility of search being made else
where for him. The idea is further carried
out by the supposition that he secured a
naked ''stiff'' from one of the many medical
colleges in the city, or the grave yards not
far distant from the Carlson cottage and the
place where the body was found.
People who knew Cronin well were not at
all certain on seeing the corpse that it was
his until the notables in the Cronln faction
took the lead in declaring positively that no
doubt was possible. The editor of one of
the leading newspapers of the city, who had
frequently met the doctor, saw the body i'm
mediately after the discovery, and upon re-
turning to the office, when asked for an
opinion declared disbelief that the right
body had been found. A Catholic clergy
man had similar experience, and in private
Still adheres to that view. Members of in
surance fraterniuies to which Cronin be-
longed were q long time skeptical after the
discovery of the body, until silenced by the
apparently overwhelming evidence against
their own senses.
The motives advanced for such an extra
ordinary intrigue by DIR. Cronin is that ex-
pressed in this circular, namely, that his
death "would be extensively inquired into,"
and the affairs of Alexander Sullivan, whom
the circular increasingly refers to, would be
exposed with thoroughness which no other
method would accomplish. Cronln is ad-
mitted by his friends to have an Unsuitable
craving for notoriety, and such proceeding
would be thoroughly in keeping with the per-
sistency and outlandish expedients pre-
viously resorted to by him. 1t has been a
frequent comment that if the trace
left by the supposed criminals,
including the placing of the bloody trunk in
the public road, had all been for the purpose
of giving the police clues, there could have
been no better contrivance. The tardily
offered reward for the finding OF the Doctors
body has meyer been paid. The Times story
Is as follows:
New York, June flames G. Rogers, of
Brooklyn, named as one of the Buffalo COM
mitteemen who signed the report generating
Alexander Sullivan, and who gives as his
belief that DIR. Cronin is not dead, made the
following statement to-day:
~ refuse to acknowledge that I am the
Rogers referred to in the dispatch. refuse
TO acknowledge that have had anything TO
with the Clan Gael, or with any report
concerning the charges of DR.. Cronin against
Alexander Sullivan. II i am referred to as
not believing that DIR. Cronin is dead, that is
true. do not believe that he is dead, and
would not be surprised to meet him on the
street or to see him come into my Office this
moment"
"What about the alleged Identification of
the body found in Chicagol"
"There was no genuine Identification" )"
said Mr.. Rogers. "In the first place, the
body was not that OF a man who had died
by violence. There was no fracture of the
skull, merely few scratches ana abrasions,
such as might have been made on anybody
thrown into any such place. The key 10 the
whole matter lies in the finding OF finger
in the catch basin. The finger, / believe,
was procured from pme medical college.
Cronin's brother pre'ends TO identify the
body as that of his brother by the scar of a
complaint from which % per cent of men
suffer a one time or another. II a man has
suffered from such complaint, so that q
scar would have been left by which his body
could have been identified, he would moi
have survived his illness. Again, DIR. Cronin's
sister is said to have identified the body
when she was taken TO the Cavalry armory
10 look at the body. She was not permitted
TO see It for half an hour They kept hel
waiting until she was so excited that whet
she viewed the body 1t was impossible fol
her TO identify the bloated face.
IL do not believe DIR. Cronin Is dead
There was no reason for his death. The fac
that he was engaged in an investigation, nj
matter what II might have been, WA M
reason for the existence OF a vendetta as aims