The evening world., 1893-12-27
REV, AND MRS. BELLIN COURT.
Held in $500 Bail for the Result
Of the Coroner's Inquest.
Two of Their Children Have DIED
Under Peculiar Circumstances.

LONG ISLAND CITY, L. l., Dec. a.
Rev. ]. Edward Bell, ex-preacher, and
editor Of the Weekly Flag, In Astoria,
was a%rraigned. together with his wife,
Jane Bell, before Justice Kavanagh In the
Police Court here this morning and held
in 500 bail to await the result of a Cor
oner's inquest on the body of their
daughter Edith, who died under suspi-
cious circumstance last September.
Bell and his wife were arrested by
Herman Meyer, of the Brooklyn Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chill
dren, in Astoria, last night, on warrants
charging them with a misdemeanor in
having wilfully neglected to provide med
ical attendance to Arthur Morrison Bell.
\ aged thirteen years, now in the Astoria
Hospital in a serious condition OF health,
as a result of his parents alleged cru
After the death of Harry English Bell,
a fourteen-year-old son, last summer,
there was much talk In Astoria about
the apparent %unconcern of the parents
over the mourntul event.
But when a few weeks later Edith,
the beautiful sixteen-year-old daughter,
died under practically the same eireum,
causes, public indignation became so
much aroused that an official investiga-
ton was demanded.
VI ANt"Ao"hp 'A-
humed the wasted body two days after
1t had been placed in the ground. The
stomach of the child was removed and
submitted to expert chemists for analy-
sis upon the suspicion thai the result
might expose a terrible crime.
What the analysis has revealed has
Coroner and odicer Meyer declare n.a that
Il is not yet completed. The latter, how
ever, intimated to an Evening World"
reporter this m9rping that the suspicion
he declared that already enough evidence
had been secured to convict the eX-
preacher of at least a degree of man
The children are by a former wife and
were handsome and Intelligent. Their
neglect became known to the neighbors
food, and stories of persecution and star
walton from their own lips.
Bell acknowledges that he had not pro-
dead children during their fatal illnesses,
and furthermore, that they died alone
in their rooms and were found long after
life had been extinct.
Mrs. Bells declaration that the child
Edith had been prescribed for and given
medicine by a w~ell-known physician she
named has been proven false. which
fact. seems to strengthen the suspicion
In the estimation of the neighbors that
the child's death did not result from
natural causes.
The couple spent the night in the
Queens County jail, being unable to Sc
cure bail. and 1t is probable that they
VIII ccupy a cell there again, as JUS
tice kavanaugh insists that there shall
be two sureties in each case.
Bell Is about forty-hve years old and
has a very shady record, having been
several times in the tolls of the police.
Last Summer he was arrested for GRIM
inai libel and was in jail for eight days,
when he was released on making a pub
lie retraction and apology. The COM
plainant was a rival editor.
On that occasion the Long Island City
newspaper published a statement that
the woman claiming to be the wife of
Bell had no right to the title, and thai
she was the legal wife Of a telegraph
operator named Hewlett. who had been
obliged to separate from her.
She is a comely little woman, about
go~od-looking were 1t not for n cruel
look in her big, gray eyes and the hard
drawn lines on her face. She appeared
more ~unconcerned over the matter than
her husband.
When arrested. the first question she
suit of the chemical analysis, remark
ing that she supposed they had found
1t"
Bell was deposed, 1t is alleged, from
the .pastorship of a church in Astoria
on being trapped in a house of ques-
tionable character. His explanation of
the charge was that he went to the
Both prisoners deny that they neg
lected the children. or that they are
guilty of any offense. They do not at
tempt, however, on the advice of counsel
they say, to explain why they allowed
their children to beg for food, locked
them alone in a room. and left them to
die without medicine or proper nourish-
ment.