Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-05-22
TRIED HARD TO SHUTTLE OFF
PRETTY GOVERNMENT CLERKS AT
TEMPT AT SUICIDE,
Miss Kate Pike, While at the Astor House,
New York, Cuts Her wrists-She Also
Tries to AsphyxIate HerseIf-Caused by
Despondfnce.

| Miss Kate Pike, While at tho Astor House
New York, Cuts Her wrists-She Ais,
Tries to Asphyxate HerseIf-Caused b,
Despondrnce.
New YORK, May 21.-[SpecsaL 1-Amon.
the first 20 entries on the Astor Hous,
| register for Thursday is, "Mrs. Kate A
Pike, Washington" The person who wrote
it there was a tall, slender young woman
with large eyes and rather attractive face.
She has pronounced aquiline features, q
fair complexion, and n mass of dark auburn
hair. Until this noon she came and went
unnoticed.
At noon to-day the door of the Young
woman's room was still locked, notwith
standing the repeated knockings of the
chambermaids. The door was broken open.
The young woman was in bed, unconscious
! A gas jet was turned on and the window
and transom window were closed tight,
There was a cut straight across the woman s
left wrist, which had bled considerably. A
table knife was found daubed with blood.
A physician dressed the wound, which
was not dangerous having missed both of
the big arteries in the wrist, and in short
time the girl recovered consciousness She
said she was Miss Kate r. Pike, and that
she had registered under her mothers
name. She was born in Washington, she
said, and still lived there. She was %
years old. She refused to answer any other
questions. The hotel people gave the officer
a sealed letter addressed to Mrs Kate A.
Pike. which had been found in her ROOM
The policeman then picked up the girls
satchel and opened it. He found a mass of
auburn hair tied with string. He looked
at the girl and saw that her hair had been
cropped short.
''Is this your hair?" he asked.
"Yes," said the girl, nodding.
"Why did you cut it off?''
''My head ached, and it was heavy" she
said
The policeman put her under arrest.
and an ambulance took her to Bellevue.
AT the hospital she got out without assist
ance and walked into the cage" She re-
fused to tell the physicians why she at
tempted suicide.
A special from Washington tonight saws:
clerk i'll the customs division of the office of
the Secretary OF the Treasury. She is one of
the most efficient and respected clerks in
the department, and not a whisper of sus-
picion has ever been heard in regard to her
character. Hard work in the close foul air
of the room in which she worked brought ON
nervous prostitution, and her physician told
her she must rest. She went about ten days
ago for visit to her sister, who lives on
Staten Island, and started on her
return, having taken as much leave
as was granted her. Stopping briefly at the
Astor House sue was seized with Il fit of
despondence. Her mother, who keeps a fine
boarding house here, is terribly prostrated
with the news, and the many who knew and
admired her worth in the Treasury Denart-
ment and in her social circle are greatly
shocked. She is another victim of the vii
lainous atmosphere that prevails in the hor-
ribly-sewered and ventilated Treasury De-
partment, which numbers its dead by the
hundreds.