Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-06-23
CRAZED BY GRIEF,
A Famous Acrobat Fatally stabbed by the
Father OF Little Girl Who Had
Died From the Effects of
Rough Treatment While
Apprenticed TO the
Tumbler.
rBY CABLE TO THE DIsPATcH.l

rBY CABLE TO THE DIsPATcH.l
LONDON, June 22-[Copyrighted. J.
George Letine is chief of a
famous acrobatic troupe well-known
in the music halls of Australia and
America, as well as in this country. At
Cardiff, last October, he was charged with
cruelty i'll treating Beatrice Currah, the 13-
year-old child of Nathaniel Currah, fore
man of the Craylord Water Works, in
Kent. The child, when apprenticed to
Letine, was robust and active, but the COM
bined effects of ill treatment and hard work
soon ruined herconstitution. Several times
she tailed to perform her part on the stage,
through sheer physical weakness, but Letine
kept her poor little nose to the grindstone.
The charge against Letine failed, through
legal techuicalities, and Beatrice returned
to her home, " here the following December
she died OF consumption. Currah had a
drawing made of her grave and tombstone,
on which were cut the words: "Our Little
One"
A MIND FULLY WRECKED.
The drawing was placed on the parlor
mantelpiece, and Currah used to spend
hours at time looking at it and whisper
ing: my poor murdered darling" At
night he would start up in bed and scream
out the same words.
From frank. genial man, Currah be-
came morose brooder over his wrongs.
Ere long he took to studying the advertise
ment columns of the newspapers, and made
himself acquainted with the movements of
Letine's troupe. Then he bought revolver
and practiced firing it. He next invested in
a huge butchers knife, which he sharpen
ed like razor, and in the handle of which
he made notches TO afford a firm grip.
The sorrowing father had now become a
dangerous madman, but there was no one to
warn Letine. Friday morning Currah sud-
denly lie the pleasant Kentish village and
came to London. At IL o'clock the same
night Letne drove up to the Canterbury
Music Hall, Lambeth, in a brougham, with
his wife, to give his customary performance,
which was one of the last on the programme.
He had done turns at several other halls the
same evening, and only an overcoat covered
his stage costume.
THE CRAZED FATHERS REVENGE.
Currah had been waiting hours for his
victim in the shadow of the stage door, As
Letine stepped from the brougham he threw
his coat open, the night being very warm.
Currah stepping forward. said quietly, 81
have been looking and waiting for you"
and plunged the big knife into the acrobat's
abdomen. Letine, diseuboweled, fell to
the ground, and was dead ere pistol shot
from the other side of the street showed that
the murderer was taking his own life. Cur
rah put the revolver right in his mouth be-
fore pulling the trigger, but the bullet sim
ply lodged in the roof of his mouth, and
the present indications are that be will live.
Letine was rich and widely known. He
had heaps OF friends in the theatrical world,
who say that the treatment which Currah
magnihed into deadly cruelty was nothing
more than ordinary discipline, but it was
enough for Currah that his child lett him
strong and cheer ul, and returned to the
home nest mental and physical wreck.