The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-07-30
MISERABLE MRS.
RICH.
TALE OF THE WRETCHED WOMAN
ACCUSED OF MURDER.

Once Travelled with Bnrnum-NOw n
Physical and Mental wreck, But
Declares Her Innocence and Says
She viii Never Go to Mexico for
TriaI-Her Version of the killing
of Her Husband, the Iowa Man.
Whom She Met at Chicago During
the Worlds Fair In 1893.
From the Washington Post.
FL Paso, Tex, July lin an iron cage,
with barred windows looking out on green
stretches of lawn and alamos. and far be-
yond to the naked hills of old Mexico, sits
a woman counting the hours between to-
day and Washington; waiting with sto-
cial calmness, which gives way now and
then to very abandonment of anguish,
| the decision Of the United States govern
ment in the demand of Mexico to deliver
! her to the authorities of Chihuahua State.
| Charged with the murder of her husband
in La Ciudad Juarez last May, aud ar
rested in El Paso, Tex, Matte Rich has
become an international problem which
| Will bear future resuhs far-reachiug and
| portentous. Hers is the first case under
the new treaty, and the fact that ''un-
| less she is surrendered there can be no
hope of securing the surrender to our off
GERS of the many Mexican border thieves
and criminals who plumber on our side
of the line and retreat into Mexico, so
precedent will be established, seems ter
rible and incredible.
The story of the murdered man and his
wretched wife is not one of the romances
which has over ii the glamor of womans
love and mans unbridled passion. 1t is
| an ugly, pitiful story at best, without one
| bright CLEAN of honest affection through
it, the womans fidelity alone excepted.
As l sat by her side in her barren cell,
! empty of every comfort humanity might
| offer, and heard her story, l read between
the eventful. sord.d youth of the woman
| and her tragic middle age the sorrOwful
truth that nowhere, from a loveless child
hood to the prison cell had she had the
one chance the good God holds for each
and all, do they but find and seize upon it,
The Tragedy of Last May.
The elimination of her adventurous life
began one May night OF this year What
| happened between shutdown and the early
morning no one has yet proven. She says
that her husband was out late, as was the
case far too often for their peace, and
that she went to bed Derore he came in
She heard his footsteps toward morning
and later heard his call. She went to his
room and found him very sick. Before she
dawned she went out on the street and
telephoned for DOCTORS and not until their
arrival did she know he was shot, and
that the wound was mortal. At the advice
of the physicians she brought him over
the Rio Grande TO Ell Paso, and placed
him In the Sisters of Charity hospital,
1rvv
interviewed and demanded the wife. She
was easily found; she had lowered about
the hospital day after day; had gone
nightly to her lonely room, making NO
attempt to escape or hide; had been at his
bedside until forced away, and had evinced
a genuine grief when told that he was
dead. When arrested she was thrown into
jail, and the forty days allowed the Mex
lean courts to prepare their demands,
heightened into some fifty odd before she
was brought before the United States
| commissioners.
Her trial is history already in the hands
of the state department, the decision of
the secretary is probably now on the
way and few days more will seal her
fate, so far as this country is RESPONSE
BILE.
Her Adventurous Life.
Little by little I drew from her the story
unrefined, but not repulsive, woman of an
age uncertain, perhaps 40, perhaps less.
Dissipation and a hard life hard in the
sense of environment and occupation have
creased her broad, north country face and
robbed it of any beauty of youth which
it might have had Her father was a
soldier of the civil war-and let us not
forget that, if it should be that the doors
, of a Mexican Jail shall close upon her
and farther than this, she seems unable "a
tel much of her early years. When about
s she was apprenticed to Barnum and
grew up in the atmosphere, moral and
mental, of the circus What did she do
1t was not without pride. mingled too
with a womanly shame, that she answered
| me: Il was a contortionst, held chairs
with my teeth, and all that. 1 danced
| and sang. and rode the horse some times
but my best act was with the gloves
am boxer but / am not ashamed of it, y
Poor hunted creaturel So unkind have
proven the men of the press that she is
afraid to say how heavy has been the
hand of fate upon her. She handed me
clipping from a reputable New York
: paper which was a Washington dispatcf
so untrue, so cruelty malicious, that onl,
foreign influence could have prompted IL
No wonder she despairingly said: IF
die 1t will be through the newspapers.
From the circus she drifted to Chicago
dance halls and variety shows Dur.ne
the worlds fair young John D. Rich AZ
\ Iowan who had run away from hom,
when a lad and had put in some ten year,
seeing the world" to his detriment visit
J ed Chicago and saw the comedy boxer il
/ some theater. He had good looks ane
a daredevil fortune ITO lay at her feet
she had some money and a heart such a,
1t was, to offer him. Without I'll,
Formally of priest or iustic,
bans they Joined their checkered lives. am
started back 10 the Southwest, where Ricf
had already made one marital venture am
record as a good-hearted, reckless fellow
At Las Cruces New Mexico, they conclud