Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-07-23
STRANGER THAN FICTION.

WY oShootiohdi sloIy Is IOlu by the
dispatches of the elopement of Miss
OHalloran, of this country, with George
Hitchcock, Secretary of the American Art
Jury at Paris. Hitchcock is a married
man. The story runs that he fell des-
perately in love with the young lady, and
one day, meeting her in the street in Paris,
he invited her to step aside from her route
TO the Postofice-but a few PAGES from
her lodgings, and where her sister and
herself had Just concluded preparations to
return to American order to look at
some works of art in private gallery.
She declined, but was coaxed into car
rage and carried off by Hitchcock. He
prevented her making any outcry by
threatening to kill her and then himself,
displaying pistol to emphasize the
threat, but all the time protesting that all
he was doing was for love. He declared
that he had had kilograms sent abroad an
nouncing their elopement, and that by
that time all the newspapers were pub
fishing the story; that she could not
therefore, return to America, and that her
family would refuse to receive her. So
soon as the elder sister missed the younger,
she set about to trace her whereabouts,
and succeeded in finding the pair at Chan
lilly, the girl being in dead faint when
her sister arrived. Hitchcock resisted her
removal, and turned the sister into the
street at late hour of night, to find her
way back to Paris as best she might. The
next morning she sought legal advice but
was told nothing could be done unless
Hitchcock wife would swear to a warrant
for his arrest. This the wife declined to
do. In this extremity an American, who
knew the family of the girls, appeared on
the scene as their champion, and he and
the elder sister traced Hitchcock to the
Isle of jersey, where he still had the
younger one under his control. Applica-
ton to the magistrate of the place was
had, but no legal method was known in
Jersey for the rescue of the girl. The
magistrate was a chivalrous man,
however, and though without legal
power, nevertheless ordered the girl
seized and brought before him, which
was done, she being carried into the
Courtroom in an unconscious condition
Though Hitchcock resisted and threat
ened the magistrate with the terrors of
the law, that gentleman replied that, de-
spite the law, helpless woman should be
protected, and he accordingly delivered
the younger sister to the care of the elder
for the night. All that night Hitchcock
paced the street in front of the hotel and
the next morning resisted the removal Of
the girl to the steamer, and went so far as
to follow the sisters to Southampton, but
they were so well guarded by resolute men
that he did not dare to attempt violence.
They finally shipped for the United States,
and their father met them at New York
and took them home to St. Paul. We
have thus extendedly told the story as
given out from the home of the girls to
call attention TO the remarkably dramatic
character of the recital that fortiiies the
old adage that truth is stranger than fic-
tion-all the time, of course, assuming the
story true as related. Had any such
romantic tale been dressed as drama, and
have been presented upon the stage, the
universal verdict would have been that
the plot was preposterous, impossible;
that the story thus dramatically recited
only served to illustrate how sensational
and unreal the stage had become, and to
what level it had sunk when such i'm
probabilities could find recognition upon
il But there appear almost every day in
Geographic and local columns of the press
well-authenticated recitals more strange
and romantic than the most exaggerated
sensationalism of the drama. In fact it
has come to this-that there is so much in
real life surprising the powers of the imag-
ination, that it is scarcely safe to any
longer criticise anything seen upon the
stage as unreal