Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1891-01-07
SPooKs AND SUCH,
With Pretty Medium as Chief
Attraction.
A NEW YORK DOMESTIC SCANDAL

III. ID. Cn roll Puts His Wife In |. Lunatic
Asylum While He Plays Fantastic Ca
pers with Her Boney-A Temple of
Humanity" Where the Cash seems to
Have Been Blown in-working n Ghost
GU Strictly business Principles.
NEW YORK, Jan. Hearings We're be-
gan yesterday at Middletown To determine
whether Mary Elizabeth Carroll, who is
confined in a lunatic asylum there is sane
or not, and to discover how muce property
she was possessed of at the time of her
committal, and whether any OF that prop
erty has been alienated from her sincr.
Mrs. Carroll was put in the asylum on
May p, 1855 She is the wife of Henry ID.
Carroll, OF this city. Mrs. Carroll's friends
declare that since she was put in the
asylum her husband has appropriated and
made away with much of the considerable
property of which she was originally pos
sessed.
Was Struck with Fanny stryker.
In case these preliminary hearings result
in further proceedings before the court,
Mr.. Carrolfs dealings with his wife's
money will be gone into extensively. His
relations with spooks when summoned
from the other world by the medium
Fanny Striker aud with the medium her
self will also be investigated Before Mr..
Carroll put his wife in the Middletown
asylum le had fallen in with the medium,
who was the wife of a dry goods salesman
and a woman of considerable beauty and
daring. Mr.. Carroll established her in a
house on West Twenty street, which
he fitted up for her purposes.
She Was Popular Medium.
She called it the temple of humanity,
and made it the headquarters of band of
believers in spooks 70 whom she gave Sc
ances at 50 head. Luther p. Marsh was
a frequent visitor there So was Ann
odelia Solomon. Mrs. Stryker made a
very popular medium, being decidedly
pretty and possessing plump and grace
fully nodded figure. which she clothed
with charming taste in the richest of fab
RIGS, and was in the habit of displaying
advantageously while in a state of trance.
Mrs. STRIKERS great hold on Mr.. Carroll
WAS her alleged ability to get into commu-
nication with the ghost Of his deceased son
Clifford
Ciiford's Ghost Was Bonanza.
She worked Clifford's ghost Cor all it
was worth, and prospered greatly Mr.
Carroll moved into the temple of human
ity, bag and baggage, after his wife had
been sent off. He told his friends he
boarded there Then the houshold moved to
ahandsomer place on Twenty eighth street
and Mr.. Stryker found it no longer neces-
sary for him to measure calico in order to
live. He helped in the temple" The
three graduated from this house and went
into handsome fiat on Madison avenue
and from there to handsome place in
Orange.
The Wronged Wife in an Asylum.
During all the masquerading and spirit
ualistic high jinks between Mr. Carroll
and the pretty spook persuader Mrs Car
roll was in the lunatic asylum. After the
hearing yesterday Lawyer Van Nance
told a reporter that the prosecution would
attempt To prove that Mrs. Carroll had
at least S20,0O of her own, in addition to
$4,000 in the United State Trust
company. and that she lent that much to
her husbands firm, and that her husband
secured the repayment of The amount to
him individually and used it for his own
purpose without making any accounting
10 her. She had also. he said. a considera-
bic amount of valuable jewelry, which
seems 10 have disappeared