The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-07-25
THE ONLY WAY OUT.
A German Disposes of His
Troubles With a Bullet.
FIVE CHILDREN ABANDONED.
A Little Girl Sent to Seek Her Father
Finds Him Dead by His Own
Hand-FinanciaI Difficulties.

Charles Rost. q German aged As years COM
mitted suicide yesterday by shooting himself
through the head. Financial difficulty is be-
lieyed TO be the cause of the deed. He was
married and was the father OF five children.
Rost was the proprietor of the Saxonia house,
four story, ramFhaekle frame building, at 500
Commercial street, near the corner of King A
saloon was on the ground floor and the other
three stories were rented out to whoever wanted
cheap living place. The upper floor was
occupied by Mr.. Rost and his family, and the
building was erected by him after the fire,
being built out over the tide fats. The times
being dull, Mr.. Rost could not secure the re-
newsl of a bond for $4,000, as e satisfaction to
the state for the use of the tide flats; and dur
ing the past few days he was very unhappy.
Yesterday morning, though he said but little,
il was evident that he was suffering from an
attack of the blues
He went into the saloon on the ground floor
at II o'clock and talked with his bartender for
few moments. asking him how much money
had been taken in. Then he went up stairs.
He was missed at 1880 by his wife, Mrs Mary
Rost, and she sent her 10-year-old daughter,
Mollie, to find him. The little girl went into
his bedroom, and not finding him she wentin
room -, used as a sltting-room by the family.
Opening the door she started back with cry of
terror, and running down the stairs to the
lower kitchen to her mother, she gasped:
"Papa's shot himself. He's all covered with
blood"
Mrs Rost caught sight of Officer Stephen near
the saloon, and telling him what had occurred,
they both hurried to the upstairs sitting-room.
The room is very small; the dingy floor is not
covered by a carpet, the only furniture is a worn
lounge and an old home made table, which take
up nearly the whole room. A low window near
the head of the lounge, opening to the street,
admits q little light. Seated on the lounge,
with his feet on the floor his body
propped back against the wall and his
head dropping upon his breast. sat Rost-
dead. drop of blood just above the
right ear; an opening in the skull over the left
temple; a f1atiened 45-ealiber bullet few feet
from the lounge the floor, and blood
spattered old-fashioned Colts muzzle-loading
revolver, which lay between the feet of the dead
man, told the tale.
On the low window sill was the dead mans
black derby hat; on the table was half bottle
of spirits of camphor. and near by was little
tin box full of percussion caps-every thing
showing that the planning for the deed had been
as cool and deliberate as the rash act was sue
cessful. There was not scrap of paper about
the room, and though several letters were found
in the pockets of the dead man, none of them
was written by him explaining why he commit
ted the deed.
The house was almost deserted at the time the
fatal shot was fired, and this fact, together with
the noise of passing teams aud trains in the
street below, is given a reason why no one
heard the sound of the shot
Coroner Horton ordered the body removed to
the undertaking rooms of Bonney & Stewart.
Arrangements for funeral have not yet been
made. All of Mr.. Rost's relatives live in Ger
many.