The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-03-05
SELLS VS.. SELLS.
Wife of the Millionaire Circus
Proprietor
Files Sensational Allegations in
Divorce Suit.
TAME AND HARMLESS
Are His Charges Compared With
Her Petition.
Was Forced to Become a Bare
back Rider.
Once Knocked Down in Tefft
House, Topeka.
TOPEKA WOMEN IN 1T.
Petition Makes Specific Charges
of Infidelity.
TOPEKA WOMEN IN 1T.
Petition Makes Specific Charges
Of Infidelity.

ond round of the great legal battle of
Sells VS.. Sells, in which Peter Sells, one
of the millionaire owners of the Sells
Forepaugh circus sues his wife for di-
virce on statutory grounds, was fought
today. In his petition for divorce Mr.
Sells made the most sensational charges
against his wife alleging that she had
been guilty of infidelity during a period
extending over the greater portion of
their married life with numerous men,
two of whom he named. Mr.. Sells fol-
lows this with a suit in which he asked
$4,000 damages from William Bott,
well known boniface, of this city, for
the alleged alienation of his wife's af-
fectiOnS
Today Mrs. Sells came back at him
with an answer which made his petit
tiOn seem tame and harmless. A large
part of Mrs. Sells answer is absolutely
unprintable. She not only accuses her
husband os intidelity but brings the
most startling charges of cruelty
against him. The answer was prepared
by Cyrus Huling, who has just return
ed from a trip of three weeks through
the west and south, gathering the al
legged evidence upon which the allega-
tions of the answer are based.
WIFE'S CHARGES.
Mrs. Sells recftes that within two
weeks after their marriage her husband
confided to her the fact of his liaison
with one Maggie with whom he had
been on terms of intimacy for years.
He made the statement, she says, in or
der to fOreStal persons who might be
glad to carry the news to her. She
claims that he forced her Immediately
after their marriage, to live in a small,
back room with but one window, al
though when he wooed and won her he
had promised her all possible luxuries.
However, she did not complain of this,
until his cruelty became unbearable.
She fI1rf claims "a Civ
weeks after their marriage he forced
her, against her protest, to become a
bareback rider in a circus with which
he was at that time connected, and
made her ride in the parades of the
show; that he compelled her to room
with woman of notoriously immoral
character, and to become the associate
of persons connected with the circus of
low, depraved and immoral character;
that the plaintiff was then acting as
advance agent of the show, and did not
return to it more often than once in 10
days or two weeks, and that the dress
ing rooms in which the changes of
clothing and dressing for the circus
exhibitions - occurred, and where this
defendant was compelled to make such
changes were so arranged that there
was no privacy whatever among the
circus wOmen-frOm 10 to 20 of them
and little or none from the adjacent
dressing rooms of the circus men and
the men themselves.
CIRCUS DRESSING ROOMS.
She charges that the exposure of per
sons, in making such changes, were of
ten unavOidably immodest and some
times indecent. Under such circum-
stances, the separation from the dress
ing quarters of the circus men, being
merely by a swinging curtain, was fire.
ouently raised for coarse and immod-
est purposes of observation; that unto
this sort of unexpected, distasteful and
offensive life the plaintiff drove the
defendant almost Immediately after
their marriage, when no hint or sug-
EsstiOn of such a thing had been given
her by the plaintiff or otherwise, prior
to their marriage, and when, on the
contrary, the plaintiff, during their
marriage engagement, had painted in
glowing colOrs the delightful life they
should lead together; that when she de-
exposure of such service with the cir
Gus the plaintiff refused her requests
and at the MonOngahela house in the
city of Pittsburg, Penn, in the month
of June 1878, with curses and denuncia-
tiOnS against her. told her that she
should continue such service or leave
him and return to the home of her
parents and stay there; that a short
time prior thereto, when she wished to
quit service, the plaintiff applied to her
all manner of profane and indecent epi-
thets, and threatened to leave her, with
out money or friends, where they then
were, on a bridge. crossing a stream
near some little country town, the name
of which she can not now recall.
TEFFT HOUSE EPISODE.
The plaintiff subsequently. so she
says, when he became somewhat sob
cred, apologized to her for his shameful
conduct toward her, but in substance
repeated the same offense and the same
apology again and again, until the de-
fendant was at last permitted to retire
from the circus.
Mrs. Sells recites numerous occasions
when the plaintiff is charged with
cruelty toward her. She says on one
occasion, after throwing her gold watch
across the room and breaking every
jewel in it, he beat her so that she was
unable to use one arm for several days;
that on another occasion, while stopping
at the Tefft House, in Topeka, Kan,
he assaulted her, knocking her down
and blacking an eye; that he was com
monty cross, irritable and tyrannicaI to
her, and was habitually drunk at night:
that he sometimes got angry because
she demonstrated with him, and would
pack his satchel and announce his in
tention of leaving her; that he never
failed, however, to return the same
night drunk and she was forced to put
him to bed. The one exception in this
manner of life. she claims, was during
a period of six months. when he deliv-
cred lectures as reformed drunkard.