The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-11-25
He Receives a Telegram Telling
of the Destruction
OF $4,000 WORTH OF
Valuables Belonging to Him in
the Baldwin Fire.
Doctors Warn Him That His
Health Won't Stand
Strain of Acting Longer, on Ac-
count of Nervous Trouble.

A rather small man sat in the prin-
cipal dressing room of the Crawford
theater late yesterday afternoon, ms
head resting on one hand and the arm
supported by the shelving which serves
as a dresser. His eyes were sunken IN
his head and his face drawn and
wrinkled. Before him on the shelving
lay a letter and a telegram, and his
gaze riveted alternately on first one and
then the other.
A young woman opened the door Of
the dressing room and entered, and
walking over to where he sat placed her
hand affectionateIy on his head. TRY
and cheer up. DEAR" she said. Just
think, if we had been there then we
might have lost our lives in the fire" 7"
"Oh I know there is nothing so bad
that it might not be worse" said the
man without changing his position.
But this wretched dyspepsia is killing
me and now comes the news that
everything we had in the world is gone
up in smoke"
Strangers would have difficulty in
recognizing the man as Harry CorSon
Clarke, SO altered was his appearance
IN comparison to that he made beIOre
the foOtlights as the ingenious Jones.
The letter before him was from a ply
sician telling him that unless he gave
up the stage Tor a while ana TOOK a rest
it would only be question of a short
time until his health gave way COM
pletely, and the telegram announced to
him that all his belongings with the eX-
ception of what baggage he had with
him, had been destroyed in the Baldwin
hotel fire in San Francisco. The woman
was the actors wife.
The letter and telegram formed two
chapters in a story of misfortune. The
announcement contained in the telegram
was sufficient to have unnerved man
in perfect health, and with the actor in
a condition bordering on illness 1t COM
pletely upset him. 1t was fully 80 min
utes after the final curtain on the matt
nee performance of What Happened to
Jones' before he started to take off his
bishops garb and assume his street at
tire.
Clarke is a sufferer from nervous
dyspepsia, and physicians all over the
United States seem unable to give him
any relief. He says that his brain never
goes to sleep, and that while in bed
at night he is perfectly conscious of his
surroundings and what's going on about
him although his body is resting. This
condition has prevailed for the last six
months, and during that time he has
fallen off in weight from 155 to 120
pounds. He has suffered from the
nervous ailment for the past year and
a half, and the only thing the physicians
seem to agree upon is the fact that he
will eventually break down under it's eff
fects.
Clarke has been a member of the
Baldwin Theater Stock company of San
Francisco for several years. Two years
ago he was married and since that
time he made his home at the Baldwin
hotel. He had a suite of rooms, and
there kept all his belongings with the
exception of only what wearing apparel
was necessary on his present tour. Just
a few days ago he had sent back
trunk containing portion of Mrs.
Clarke'S trOuSSeau and jewels valued at
So 600 His loss in money value by the
4o1 mill fn
$4,000.
But it isn't the money value care
so much about" said the actor yester-
day afternoon. It's the little things that
1 had that can't be replaced by all the
money in the world. Since I was
small boy 81 years ago, when 1 went to
the White Mountains with my uncle
and had my name in one of the Ver-
mont papers, up to the present time I
have kept every line of newspaper COM
ment that eVar appeared about me. 1t
was a fad of mine, and many night
have sat up in my rooms until almost
daylight at the Baldwin pasting news
paper clippings in scrap book. I had
several of these books, and now they
are all gone.
''And then there were my kodak pic
lures" continued the actor. Il had my
kodak with me when I made the trip
to Hawaii and to Australia, and I col
Iected hundreds of views and had them
neatly arranged in book form. And on
our wedding trip I gathered a great
many views and preserved them, and
now every one of them is destroyed.
Besides my clippings and pictures there
were little relics picked up here and
there every one with a history, and
prided myself on possessing about the
best collection of stage wigs of any
actor in the United States. Everything
was in my rooms at the Baldwin, and
here is what got for my Thanksgiving
dinner"
The actor picked up the telegram. 1t
was from H. W. Lake, manager of the
destroyed hotel, and it read:
Escaped with our lives only in our
nightclothes. Hotel just a pile of ruins
Everything gone.'
THAT tells the whole story said
Clarke sorrowfully. while Collier told
me in Kansas City yesterday that the
newspapers had an extra out telling of
the burning of the Baldwin hotel and
I never had anything shock me as much
in my life. But 1 kept hoping that as
our rooms were in the central part Of
the building, the fire might be extin-
Eyuished before it reached them, and
wired Lake. But today got this tele-
gram and it tells me the worst
Before leaving Topeka last night Mr.
Clarke decided to take the advice of
the physician, and telegraphed s. r.
Ricaby, his advance agent, to cancel all
his dates for the week commencing
December 5. He will spend that week
at the Coates House in Kansas City, in
an endeavor to recuperate.