Alexandria gazette. [volume] (Alexandria, D.C.) 1834-1974, 1893-04-28
Drowned in Her Bathtub.

Mrs. Alice Hodges, aged SO years, the
wife of Charles E. Hodges, the manager
of George Barnard & Co.'S sporting
goods store in Bond street, committed
suicide Tuesday by drowning herself in
the bathtub in her flat on tho fourth
floor of the fashionable double-apart-
ment house at 6l5 st. Marks avenue,
Brooklyn.
TO make sure of her work, Mrs.
Hodges, before placing herself in the
water, plugged the crevices in the door
and window with rags and turned on
the gas. She was alone in the fiat, her
husband having gone to New York to
business, and their nine-year-old daugh-
ter, Flossie, the only member of the
family, being absent at school.
Mr.. Hodges took his departure about
7 o'clock after kissing his wife and
daughter good-by, and the latter started
from home an hour or so later, intend
Ing to call on young friend on her
way to school. Mrs. Hodges was then
left alone in her apartments, her servant
having gone away few days ago.
A few minutes after S o'clock Ellen
Ryan, a servant on the fifth floor,
noticed Mrs. Hodges in the hallway on
the fourth floor, and so far as is known
at present this is the last time
she was seen alive. At a little before 3
O'Clock in the afternoon one of the oc-
cupants of the third floor noticed water
dripping through the ceiling overhead,
and hurrying to the hallway notified
Joseph Hessford, the bell boy.
The latter ran up stairs, and finding
all the doors in the Hodges, apartments
locked, summoned Edison +. tanning,
the engineer, from the basement. En-
gineer tanning forced open door Of
the Hodges, apartments and hurried to
the bath room. He found the door
locked and burst it open.
He and the bell boy were driven
back by the volume Of escaping gas.
He quietly opened all the windows and
closed the open gas jet in the bathroom.
Mrs. Hodges was lying dead in the
tub without clothing. Her head was
bent forward and submerged under the
water, which was still overfiowing the
bath tub. Every creyice in the door
and window through which air could
have entered had been carefully stop
ped.
The nine-year-old daughter arrived
home from school few minutes later.
She was taken in charge by some of
the other occupants of the house. She
could throw no light whatever on her
mothers act. Her mother, she said,
kissed her as usual when she was going
away, and told her to come homo from
school without stopping on the way.
Mr. Hodges arrived at his home from
New York about o'clock or an ur-
gent summons, and was completely
overcome when he learned of his Wife's
suicide. Later, when he had partly
regained his composure, he said:
II am utterly at loss to account for
this dreadful occurrence. With the
exception of an ailment to which many
women are subject, my wife enjoyed
fair health and was a woman of cheer
full temper and disposition. She had
no domestic trouble of any kind, and
our ten years of married life has been
uniformly pleasant.
"This morning my wife was in re-
markably good spirits, and at the
breakfast table l told her about my ar
rangements to take her and our little
girl to see the naval parade, and had
spoken of our plan to visit Chicago
at the opening of the fair. She must
have become suddenly deraEged from
some cause which is completely beyond
my comprehension"
There was a rumor that a sealed let
ter written by Mrs. Hodges and adj
dressed to her husband had been found
in the bath room, but Mr.. Hodges as
sured Police Captain Cullen that there
was not particle of truth in the story,
and that his wife had not left scrap
of writing behind her of any descrip-
ton.
The family has lived in the house
nearly year, and was highly thought
of by the other tenants.-N. T. San.