The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1891-11-28
THE SUICIDE CLUBS JOKE.
German Philosophy and American HI
NOR Responsible for the Legend.

German Philosophy and American HUI
NOR Responsible for the Legend.
From the Neuo York Herald
Outside is the busting life of modern
yankee town. that makes commonplace
things like shoes and sewing machines by
the annual millions. Inside is san led
floor, low, smoke-stained ceiling, an old
fashioned, well-blacked stove of the hour
glass waist variety, a scant furnished bar. q
few newspaper-littered tables, and two old
Germans with white hair, which stands
straight up from their wrinkled foreheads.
as If the thatch Of each old poll rose aghast
at the reflection of itself in the other.
On a bright day when the windows are
open and the sunlight and the hum of the
commonplace busy life of the yankee town
pour into 1t Ii may seem as cheerfully un-
interesting as any other little German beer
saloon. But on dark day, ike that on
which visited it last week, when there is
no sound but the drops Of rain outside ana
none within but the low rumble Of heavy
South German consonants crossing the bar
on the two sides of which the two white
headed old fellows stand talking, l am pre-
pared to believe with goodly portion of the
people of Bridgeport that this was the origi.
nal meeting place of the world~famous
suicide club. the room where In ghastly
mirth they drew their charter providing
against too easy modes of death and laugh
ing, ratified the dice, alloting each his day
| of doom.
For good portion Of Bridgeport believes
that there was some sort of a testing tryst
| made with death here in this low ceiled
| room-No. $50 Main street is the exact
location, and that fate, working in the
curious, devious ways which are fate's own,
made each of the testers thereafter 9solenS
uoienS keep the compact.
y io half ar
| instance mans children hold it. Charlie
Henss, the letter carrier, did not heed the
mad wags of the town who still keep up the
| jest and who conferred on him the honor of
membership, till he went home one night
and was met by his childT en- with the fearful
query: Papa, must you kill yourseltl Are
| you a member Of the Suicide Clubl' And
when a mans children do not believe it,
the fact that other people do may make the
belief equally cruel. For when John Kopp
was found hanging In his cellar at No. 10
Evarts' court, the other day, aud the story
was started that the turn of another
member of the suicide Club had come, it
was his children who tearfully admitted to
! Coroner Doten that, while their father was
not a member of the club, he had in self
destruction followed the example of two of
his brothers and brother-in-law. So the
merry jest of the Bridgeport ways opened
the door of the Kopp family closet and
showed four skeletons rafting there instead
| of one.
So much for some Of the outcroppings of
the mingled vein OF tragedy and farce
wherein the antiquarian in search Of the fin
de steele manners and customs Of New EGG
land townsfolk will some day find rich
but quesrly assorted yield of legendary lore.
As for the vein itself, find IN it evidence
of the existence OF not one but three suicide
I clubs, one o: which was formed in Jest and
never exercised its party rights. one which
did exercise its charter rights. If 1t had any,
but which left no actual proof OF its exist
ence, and one the existence OF which grew,
strangely enough, out of the belief in the
| existence of the first two entertained by
| some bankrupt French spectators, who,