The Washburn leader. [volume] (Washburn, McLean County, N.D.) 1890-1986, 1891-05-09
GOULD OR GOLD.
A Crazy Fanatic Goes to New York
to ExtOrt Money from Jay
Gould.
He Claims to Belong to a Religious
Body Called Followers Of
Christ.
He Saws he Was Instructed to Take
Gould's Money or his
Life.
Your Money or Your Life.

Your Money or Your Life.
New YORK, May 8.-Inspector Byrnes
arrested a lunatic who threatened to kill
Jay Gould unless he was bought off with
a large amount of money. He imagines,
or pretends to imagine, himself vice.
president of a band of world reformers,
styling themselves Christ followers, and
to be doomed to carry out the decree of
the order. The mans name is Charler j.
Dixon and he comes from Pueblo, Col.
That there is method in his madness is
shown by the following story of his cam
paign against the Wall Street million
aire. It was yesterday morning that In
spector Byrnes received a telegram from
Gould's house, requesting him to meet
the railroad magnate at his Wall Street
office. The inspector went down as re-
quested and soon after hie arrival, DIR.
Mum, Jay Gould's physician, came in.
He told the inspector that the man who
represented himself to be Charles j.
Dixon came to his his house the night
before with an introduction from a friend
in Pueblo and told him a long story,
which he repeated in all it's details. He
was, Dixon had said, a member of an Or
~ganization known as Christ's Followers,
very powerful in this country, and had
been made a deputy by the arch council
to kill Jay Gould. He thought, how
ever, that the matter might be fixed. In
the wear 1888 he had been engaged by
certain newspaper men to carry copy and
through their employment he got into
the order. At the end of a year or SO he
was asked to take the last degree
and did SO. This was the way of
It. He went to the Owls
Head, on one of the lakes, by order of
the society, and that night knelt in a cir
Gle of fifty masked men unknown to him
and took an oath to become n of
Christ's followers and obey the laws of
the order. Its purport was the equallza-
ton of money and property, there being
too many rich and too many poor people
in the country. Its methods, as will ap:
pear, were original. Dixon was ordered
to proceed to New York, obtain an inter-
view with Jay Gould and demand $l,O0O,-
600 down, $5,O00,00O in ten years, at the
rate of half a million a year, and still an
other S5,OOO,OOO in the next decade, I'M
less Gould died in the meantime. In
this case. Dixon was to demand the set
ting aside of all his property for charita-
BILE purposes, except one million for each
member of the family. That was the
limit. Dixon said unless Gould ION
sented to his tern g, he would be killed:
If neither happened, he (Dixon) would
catch it from Christ's Followers
and would have to die.
He got his Pueblo friend
to give him an introduction to DR.. Mum,
Gould's physician, on a pretext that he
was gong to New York for medical ad.
vice. Since he had been here, it had
occurred to him that he might fix things
with the order for 100000 down and
100000 for charity, saying Gould was
an old man and could not live long any
way. But that wa the cheapest. In
anticipation of the refusal and possible
failure to kill Gould he had his own
life insured for $4,000 TO- the benefit Of
his family and rather than to suffer
death at the hands of Christ's Followers
had determined to kill himself. He
would go to Hartford, shoot off his own
pistol, tear his watch chain and scatter
his papers in the road to make it look
like robbery. Then shoot himself with
another revolver to complete the fraud,
thus his insurance would hold good:
DR.. Mum listened to a long story and
arranged to have the man meet him
again last night. At that meeting In
spector Byrnes and one of his men were
present unseen. At the end of the inter
view they arrested the man and took him
to the police headquarters. To-day he was
committed to await examination as to his
sanity. He is crazy of course, but a very
dangerous lunatic. He was not armed
when arrested, but arms were found
in his trunk. He is a strapping fellow
six feet in his stockings and about IS
years old. To Inspector Byrnes he re.
peated the story he told the doctor and
says he was 'svice.president No. VI" in the
order. All the commands sent to him
from headquarters were signed, he said,
sAdoniR."