Butte semi-weekly miner. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1886-1890, 1889-10-05
A SLAVE TO
The Details of the Horrible Death Of Bern
hardt,s Husband.

The Details of the Horrible Death of Bern.
hardt's Husband.
A story comes from Paris giving som
sensational details Of the death OF jacques
Damala, husband of Sarah Bernhardt,
says the Pail Mall Gazette. Damala was
a slave to the morphine habit, and during
his last season with Sarah in Egypt vent
80 far as to forge the names Of doctors
from Cairo and Alexandria to prescriptions
made by himself ordering enormous guam
titles OF the soothing poison. Walters
were bribed by him in every hotel where he
lived and became accomplices in the slow
but sure work Of his own destruction.
On their return from Egypt Sarah and
her troupe stopped at Milan. There Da-
mala could no longer hide his situation
from his friends. One evening when seated
with his wife at q table d'hote, he was
seized for the first time with a fit OF de-
lirium tremens in the presence of more than
100 terrified people. Around him he saw
nothing but rats, who were, he howled. as
sailing him, running over his body and
trying to eat up his vitals.
LIZ ACk AAO 1O0tuNOc WGKO IHou uOEs
rible to behold. Suddenly he imagined see-
ing also rats on some of his companions of
travel, rushed upon them, and tore up the
dress Of several guests in the dining hall.
No one dared lay hands on him; but Sarah,
although frightened to death, seized him in
her arms, and by dint OF caresses and kind
words, brought him back at last to his
senses.
From that eventful day Sarah had him
carefully Watched, and as soon as he was
back with her to Paris she summoned three
of the most famous doctors, and asked
them to prepare q mixture exactly similar
to morphine, but thoroughly innocuous,
and induced Damala to use it. At first he
had been very suspicious, and had made a
careful analysis Of the new potion, as would
have done q thief who would have stolen a
coin. But he had discovered
nothing, and a thus saved from himself
for q little while. Sarah, all absorbed by
the rehearsals Of Lena at the varieties,
had %summarily locked him up in her own
house on the Boulevard Pereire, denying
him all kinds If flashes, potions, packages
and v his street garments, from fear he
would escape and buy the real articles at
some druggists place.
One day, however, he recovered his lib
erty, bought bigdoses OF morphine and had
soon fits OF furious madness. He was
haunted by the idea that every one around |
him wal prosecuting him. He imagined see-
ing one Of his friends spying him from the
rails OF the Suburban railroad, which was
running under his windows. He thought he
Jeanne, the sister of Sarah, coming
down, with the help of q sheet, from the
story above to peer at him through his
while he wal injecting morphine
under his skin. He heard an army of spies |
to him: Morphine! Morphins!"
rom under every board OF the floor in his
And, armed with a loaded pistol,
he would search the whole house, shouting
and bowling.
'See here the miserable wretches! They
fall! The train went crush them!
They are bullet-proofl All, les Canailles! |"
When he was dead, at the end of one OF
those frightful scenes, there was not to be
'ound on his dilapidated body q single
place which had not been stung with one of
he twenty-three Pravaz syringes he had
leed for years to saturate himself with
Morphine and cocaine.