The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1893-11-04
MRs. GUYNING,s sToRY.
Leland stnnrord's Niece Relates n Terrible
Tale of Cruelty.

Tale of Cruelty.
New YonK, Nov. 3.-The moving
papers OF Mrs. Christina Lathrop Gun
ming, niece OF the late Senator Leland
Stanford, OF California, and corrobora-
tive alTidavits, together with the state
ment OF her counsel in supreme court
chambers to-day, developed one OF the
most remarkable cases OF cruelty on
record.
Mrs. Cunning recites numerous acts
on the part OF her husband, now dead,
that makes him appear in most un-
enviable light. Cunning ran away
from his wife and his creditors in No
vember, 1888, with $4,000 OF her
money, after squAndering her fortune
of S250,0O0. He was lost in snow
storm in the Andes mountains in May,
1889.
A judgment on one OF the notes for
So 600, obtained from her by her
husband, figured in yesterdays
proceedings before Judge Bar
rett. Lawyer Joseph B, Barcus ap-
peared for Mrs. Cunning and moved
that the judgment secured in Connecti-
cut by the Lincoln National bank OF
this city January, 1889, and also at
! Saratoga in February, 1891, be set
aside.
Mrs. Cummings moving aftidavit'
stated that, alter her marriage with
Cunning, they went to Mount Vernon
to live, and four weeks afterwards he
began threatening her and despoiling
her OF her property. He made her an
inmate OF an insane asylum for six
weeks, in Hartford, Conn, beginning in
May, 1889. Since she was removed
from the asylum she has lived with her
mother and two children IN Saratoga.
Mrs. Cunning relates that on one occa-
sion when lie wanted her to sign note,
her husband presented revolver at
her head. At another time he
choked her until she faint
ed and once he knocked her
down with his Est and injured her
spine. To save her life she signed
notes in those instances.
On cold night in the winter OF 1887
Cunning wanted her to sign another
note, and, because she refused, he
dragged her out OF bed aud forced her
to sign. On still another occasion,
when she had protested against signing
any more notes, Cunning knocked her
down, and, grabbing her hands. bent
her fingers back until the flesh was
torn. Sears are now visible on her
hands.
Mrs. Cunning says he made her sign
another note OH September %, 1855.
when she was about to become mother.
He drove everybody from her room,
and told her that she must sign note
for more money. She protested, and
fetching pen and ink to the bedside, he
grabbed her hand and held it so that
he caused her to trace her name on the
note.
In October, 1887. Mrs. Cunning says
that her husband leased farm oil his
brother near Norwalk, Conn, and
stocked it with thoroughbred horses
and called it a "scientifiC stock farm"
He added five hundred acres to it and
sunk 100000 OF her money in it. On
October 20, 1883, he induced her to
come to this city. When Oh the train
he told her that he wanted her to sign
more notes, and when she refused lie
threatened to put her in an insane
asylum. He took her to the Chemical
National Bank and she there signed
several notes, including the one that
figured in the suit against her.
Mrs. Cunning says that she notified
William I. Cornell, cashier OF the Lin
coin National Bank, OF the duress she
was under, ann that she would not be
responsible for the notes thus eXtorted
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