Kansas City journal. [volume] (Kansas City, Mo.) 1897-1928, 1897-11-21


cradle spouse have failed to bring her
back. 1t was there she was found this
afternoon. dressed in a plain calico dress
and looking very little like the wife Of one
Of the most famous men in America.
''Is it true that you have deserted General
Clay?" she was asked.
Il have left him." she innocently replied.
II may return to him-he wants me to. He
would not let me go to parties and he OBJ
jected 10 my visiting any of my relatives;
that was why l left him. Oh, yes, he gave
me everything / wanted. He has sent me
a lot of money twice since left, and when
he came home from Cincinnati he brought
me a guitar, oceans of candy and bananas
and many nice things. but don't love him
any more.
Fears He Il to BE Killed.
"He is getting old and thinks people are
going to kill him. He keeps ever so many
guns and pistols and knives and has men
paid to fight. He would always let me go to
visit my neighbors. but he sent a man along
with me all the time to SEQ that none of his
relatives tried to kill me-
General Clay refused to be interviewed
and when his visitor mentioned She es-
arrangement he was ordered from the castle
at the muzzle of a rifle. From other sources,
however, it was learned that the general
and his child wife had several little quar-
rels Of late. because of her persistence in
wanting to attend parties and balls and
visit her relatives, to all Of which the gen.
eral objected. 1t was this restraint that
caused her to leave her elegant home with
all its luXuries and return to the humble
cottage of her relatives.
The general is using every effort to get
her to come back. He has pleaded in low
ing notes for her to return. He has prom
ised her fine dresses. dances and parties. He
has even invoked the aid of good old John
Biggerst. near neishbor. in an endeavor
to regain his wife.
The generals children are rejoiced over
the separation, thinking that as he is 81
years of age. his fine estate will go to them
at his death. Many stories are af1oat con-
corning the general and his eccentric life at
White hall, which is said to be fortified like
a medieval castle, but the neighbors. be-
cause of the old mans warlike nature. are
afraid to talk.
A Man Born for Trouble.
General Cassius Marcellus Clay. who IS
watching for the homecoming of his child
wife is certainly a man born for trouble
1t would be just his luck and lot should
she never come back. 1t would be the
usual programme of the relentless fate
which has followed him should she conclude
she does not love her husband with the
same ardent devotion she die three years
ago, when as a tow-headed daughter of a
poor Kentucky family she joined her four
teen summers with the eighty-four winters
of one of the last of the Bluegrass aristo-
Gratis. She has gone back to the humble
ness Of the surroundings of her childhood
The attractiveness of scenes she knew be-
e., .-I,o ed, tIa It,tfA 1R tf1h x1
is SO alluring that the general is beginning
to fear she has wearied of him. She is
now Il. and under the laws of the state
she can do as she pleases. There is no
lega! process by which the statesman, SOL
dier. diplomat. orator and duelist can get
back the young heart that he took unto
himself until the said heart gets good and
ready to return TO the mansion. 1t Is
feared among his neighbors that Mrs. Clay
has refused longer to be a player in the
pathetic romance Of December and May
a: White hall.
1t is one of the strange things In the life
of this man that the least worthy things
that he has done have always been the
Cnes longest remembered and most widely
people who know that he engineered all ;ne
diplomacy whereby the United States Sc
cured Alaska for song or that ne suf-
fered more than any other living man for
fame rests more generally on the fact that
he never feared anything that walked on
two feet or that his actions have invariably
been dictated by his own convictions He
has killed several men who quarreled with
him. He tried to kill several others who
got away. He fell in love with n Russian
woman whom he had no right to look
upon, and brought her home for his first
wife to meet. His family was driven from
him by his insistence that the Russian
section of his heirs should be recognized
He lived In a sort of forgiven reputation
for a long number of years after the close
got the eye of the gossiping world again
by the announcement of his intentions 10
marry a girl whose least unfitness for
was the fact that she was
young enough to have been the daughter
of son of his son.
General Clay's Girl Wife.
General Clay has had a remarkable ex
perience with his young wife She was an
orphan and went to his estate first as an
assistant to an old Scotch woman, who
tended the sheep muck. like they do in the
old country One day the aged master of
told her he wanted her to be his wife She
was scared almost to death. and ran to her
brothers S house with the story. The BROTH
er went at once to the general. demanding
an explanation. He made no explanat tion
beyond the fact that he meant what hei
had said. His sincerity and the poverty of
the girls family secured quick consent for
the alliance. The generals sons objected
most vigorously, and son Is said to have
given currency to an offer that it would be
worth $0s cash to any man who would