The Topeka state journal., 1897-12-08
Who EIOped With Her Fathers
COIOred COachman
is DECLARED INSANE
Is Brought to Kansas City by
PinkertOnS.
viii Be Placed in a State In
stitutiOn Today.
Made Three Attempts to Take
Her Own Life.

Kansas City, Mo, Dec. S.-Niss Kate
Neal who left her home at Sweet
Springs, No, last week and who was
traced to Butte, Mont, whittier she
went to the company of Joseph c. john
son, a married negro who had been her
fathers coachman, has been formally
committed to a state asylum for the in
sane.
Across a page in the Midland hotel
register was written yesterday this
line:
Miss Kate Ellsworth Lincoln, Neb."
The chirography was not that of a
woman. The entry was made by a man.
about whose identity the servants of
the hotel had been sworn to the utmost
secrecy The name was an alias.
Kate Ellsworth of Lincoln, Neb., at
the Midland hotel, was Kate Neal of
sweet Springs, Mo, whose name has
been heralded to every city in the cOun-
try as that of the young woman whose
revolving ENHANCEMENT with the negro,
Joe Johnson, and her elOpement with
him to Montana, has come to be the
most shocking social scandal ever de-
Yeloped in the state of Missouri.
Kate Neal staked the luxuries of
wealth, the responsibility of high social
position ana an untarnished reputation
against the Establishments of a negro
servant, and she has lost all of promise
that the world held for her. She is now
reaping the whirlwind of parental and
social ostracism Today she VIII leave
the Midland hotel for the restraints Of
the state insane asylum in St. Joseph,
Mo, where she viii be taken by DR..
John Owens of Sweet Springs, Mo. on
the train leaving the union depot at :55
a. m. and neither her father nor her
mother will be with her to say goodby.
They have expressed a desire never to
look upon her again.
Kate Neal knew nothing of the reve-
latiOnS that have been made in the
newspapers covering her eSca pade with
her negro lover, as she made the sue
ceeding stages of her railway journey
between Butte, Mont, and Kansas City.
She did not know that a Pinkerton
agent was close behind her armed with
authority to take her into custody. She
did not know as she stood in the union
ticket window about trains to Sweet
Springs, where her fathers house is
that the doors of that house were closed
TO her, perhaps forever And when the
man who stood by her elbow, and who
was the very persOnificatiOn of polite
ness, informed her that he was a friend
of her father and that he had come to
meet her at her fathers request, she
did not know he was PinkertOn agent
and so she readily consented to accom-
pany him to the Midland. And her es-
cort changed her name to t.FCllsWOrth -
and the PinkertOn agent felt secure
against the public learning more of this
strange young woman. In the belief
that their charge was safe from intru-
sion the PinkertOns left Miss Neal to
court the seductive Influences of NOR
phine and to sleep. She did not learn
that she had been caught in her own
web of falsehOOds, which she had spun
for her parents concerning her recent
movements and the first knowledge of
her unenviable situation came to her
yesterday morning, when. after she had
sent for a cup of coffee, she asked for
a morning newspaper.
Then the detective revealed his real
position towards her. told of her faith
er's sorrow. Kate Neal showed no emo
tion. She became defiant. She decIar-
ed that it did not matter much, anyway,
that she loved Johnson once. but she
had come to hate him since she learned
that he was already married, and that
he was not a Spaniard
The detective was not prepared for
this mood. He did not understand
Kate Neal.
While the detective was temporarily
absent from her Kate Neal had sent a
bell boy for whisky. When the detec-
tive returned his charge was stretched
on her bed convulsed in bodily agony.
Jim, have taken poison she cried,
4 want to die"
Rushing to the telephone Jim called
up Chief of Police Hayes and when the
latter was made acquainted with the
facts he dispatched Assistant Police
Surgeon George Norberg to the Mid
land The woman was writhing in pain
and in her delirium continually called
for her mother and her pleadings for
forgiveness were pitiful to hear. DR..
Norberg gave her a liberal dose of apo
morphine and in less than an hour Kate
Neal had recovered completely from the
effects of the morphine. How she man
aged to make a second attempt on her
life is q mystery even to her watcher,
but it is known that she took a dose of
strychnine and that the prompt appli-
cation of an emetic again saved her
life.
DR.. Norberg called to attend her
three times during the day. At one
time he gave it as his opinion that Kate
Neal was suffering from acute alcohol
ism.
DR.. John Owens of Sweet Springs,
who, since the day of Kate Neals elope-
ment with the negro Johnson, has been
acting as the agent of the girls father,
DR.. L. C. Neal, had been notified of her
presence in Kansas City. He arrived
at the Midland at I o'clock yesterday,
accompanied by DR.. Wilson of Marshall,
Mo- and DR.. John PuntOn of Kansas
City, both experts in lunacy. Through /
out the afternoon and late into the
hght Miss Neal was under their close |
observation and the result of their OBJ
seFNauons was that DF. Wilson was
ehlphatle in his declaration that the
young woman was suffering from acute
nolIlocIdaI and suicidal mania. DR.. !
uAtoh preserved an impenetra BILE 81
Iehce as 10 any opinions he had formed.
There is a Glass of PeopIe
Who are injured by the use Of coffes
Receht4ss- there has been placed in All
the grOceIy-sSt ores a new rreDarati tion
"a He'd C1EeA1N-C rHade of r17ve ,~~s;,.-