Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1900-05-03
HOUSE WITHIN A HOUSE.
How Wealthy Woman VIII Evade .
 Witch's Hoodoo.

ally tiouHu supSISllllon IS NdSu- ington's newest marvel, and one may safely say that nothing to match it has ever been seen anywhere. Baronial castles, as we'll as edifiees of other kinds, often gain resident spooks or acquire curses as incidents of their history. but it has not been the fashion hitherto to provide in the architects plans against such troubles, and the notion of embodying a hoode killer in the very fabric of a mansion is wholly novel. The owner of this remarkable house, which as yet is not quite half finished, is Mrs R. H. Townsend of Philadelphia. Before her marriage she was Mary Scott, a daughter of the late Col. Tom Scott, of Pennsylvania railroad fame. Her wealth runs into the millions. and the mansion afore- said will cost her about s&Q0, 900. It will be nearly twice the size of the famous Letter house, on Dupont circle. being 125 feet in width and 123 feet in depth. Mrs. Townsend is building it, she says, for her youngest daughter, now IT years of age, and almost ready to enter society. It will be the scene, doubtless, of some of the most gor- geous entertainments ever given at the national capital. Now, once upon a time-a very proper way to begin such story as this-Mrs. Townsend inter- viewed witch. It was a remarkably clever witch, and, in revealing the future to her lady patron, she predicted number of events since realized with astonishing accuracy in Mrs. Town sends life. 1t was a very bright and cheerful picture she drew, on the whole one may command good deal of brightness and eheerfulness if one pos- eesses millions of dollars-but there was one unpleasant prognostieation. This was that if Mrs. Townsend ever occupied a dwelling which had never been lived in before she would die with in six months after moving in. This prophecy struck Mrs. Townsend as grewsome, to say the least, and up to now she has carefully avoided all risk of mourning the penalty suggested. Though anxious for some time past to move her residence to Washington and build home here, she has been restrained from the accomplishment of this desire by the witch's ominous vat
 fcination. She had thought of buying house, but could find none that was large enough or adequate in other re- speets for her purposes. At length, however, she hit upon an ingenious method of evading the hoodoo and get ting what she wanted at the same time. She decided to purchase the old Hill
 yer mansion on Massachusetts avenue, and to construct palace around 1t. This she is doing in such manner that while occupying the new mansion, she will actually live in the old Hillyer house, the skeleton of which is re- tained as middle portion of the re- vamped structure. Her bedroom, her dressingroom and bathroom and her boudoir will be in the ancient dwelling, the original floor joists and framework. as we'll as the roof, being kept intact. Thus the hoodoo will be defeated, in- asmuch as the construction on which the builders are now engaged comes under the head of alterations" tech nically speaking, and Mrs. Townsend may consider herself safe against the fulfillment of the conditional threat re- corded against her in the book of fata-