The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1902-02-09
"CALE" MITCHELL'S SUICIDE.
THE SARATOGA GAMbLEFS
FIGHT AGAINST HEREDITY.

nfen Duuutfu W ~ 80
His Rise From . NewSboy TO . Ia
NOUS Gambler Last Cons
test With Canneld- D M"ti'ei In Shoots
ing Himself at senator BRACKETS Door
s.n.roaA. Feb. s.-The self-wrought
oa,h ~ Caleb W. Mitch hell last week has
hsd the effect Of centering public attention
I'll here ard IN New York on two men,
III in a way. public characters and both
- ,,hom have been intimately connected
.,h ,he life and development Of Saratoga
for several years.
ono ~ these men Is State Senator Edgar
,-,n,.r Rrackett and the other is Richard
Carseld. proprietor Of the Saratoga
- hs,,er known as John Morrissey's
a,.h ,o,,se. and acknowledged to be the
80, gambler in the world. Both men
80 unwiling factors in the last years
~ NitcbelTs life and both were unwillingly
ard unkpoyingly connected with his death.
utcbelIs career never took him over
altogether smooth roads and at the end
,be crack Of the suicides pistol brought
oown the curtain on a life whose last few
wears were a tragedy, whose climax could
hardly have been other than suicide, IL one
holds 10 the theory Of heredity. Few.
however, excerpt NllNtAfll All bOilit VI lIS
MANNERS of his immediate family knew
how dark that tragedy really was.
For four or five years before his death
he came and went among his fellows, never
be,raying by word or act that his mind
was ever tormentcd. not by the fear, but
by the conviction that, sooner or later. 10
would be by his own act that his wife
would be widowed and his children made
orphans. 1t was this conviction that made
stragedy of the last Years of Gale Mitch
els life. but his world knew nothing Of II.
His steel-blue eyes regarded the future
ss steadily as they had often regarded the
face Of an opponent across the gaming
table. His cold. hard face met the world
with no suggestion Of the torture behind
II. His wonderfully genial smile, which
drew men toward him in spite OF themselves,
was as CHEEKY for his friends as ever
Yet all the while he was playing the cards
with fate, in a game which he knew he must
lose and whose limit was death. The
tory Of the play. in which Mitchell could
never win a hand, and into which Senator
Brackett and Garfield were drawn, has
never been fully told. Now that the game
4 over, II will do no harm to tell K. and the
telling will serve the purpose OF clearing
up some interesting features OF a career
than which few. since the days OF the Argo-
nauts and Poker Flat. nave been more
picturesque.
MIrCHELL's START IN LIFR.
Mitchell began life, that is that part Of
Il for which he alone was responsible, as a
newsboy on the streets of Troy. He could
sell more papers than any other boy in
the city and he could fight harder M more
scientifically in the defence Of what he be-
lieved to be his rights than any lad four
times his weight and height,
Further than that. he early learned that
the only way for a poor boy to get rich was
90 spend less han he earned. He had two
brothers. William and George. but il was
Gale who became the mainstay OF the
family, because. somehow. he always
seemed to have ready money.
After a time he had laid by enough to
go into business for himself and he opened
a saloon The brothers drifted to New
York and took up the same vocation.
George Mitchell dabbled in politics and
became an Alderman. Both he and Caleb
seemed TO have a genius for politics and
at the game both were fairly successful.
Il was not long after all three boys had
pushed out from the old home that tho
mother showed traces OF insanity and n
day she went down into the cellar and cut
her throat. That was the first suicide in
Gale Mitchells family but some OF the
mothers relations insisted that the sui
cidal mania would descend from the mother
TO her children.
Gale Mitchell laughed at this story In
the early days. No such thing as old
women's bablings about the spook Of hered-
fly could bluff him out Of a fair enjoyment
OF the good things of life.
80 matters ran on for several years and
each Of the brothers accumulated a fair
amount OF this worlds goods. William
acquired a saloon in Prince street. George
opened another one somewhere else. and
Gale, most successful Of all. was grad
uated from the saloon TO the hotel and had
at various times. guest houses in Albany,
Saratoga, Washington and New York.
Glen Mitchell, a little north OF this vii
lage, was. at n time, one Of the most
famous road houses in the country. Gale"
and George Mitchell ran the place together,
while Gale, alone, ran the Florence House,
somewhere in the downtown of old New
York, and later no opened, under the name
VI ne MITCHELL HOUSE, WHhl Is now the
Metropole at the southwest corner Of
Forty-second street and Broadway.
THE HADow OF SUICIDE.
In all OF these ventures Gale" Mitchell
made money and he became widely known
all over the country. His home life was
happy, and outside Of his business his chief
interest was in the happiness of his wife
and his children.
The only thing that particularly bothered
MN IN those early days was the reference
which his brother George made, every now
ana again, 10 their mothers suicide. At
such times George would express the belief
that he too, would 60 the way the mother
had gone.
Gale Mitchell tried to disabuse his
brother OF any such notion, but il seemed TO
be deep-seated and one day he got a tele-
gram from Friends Lake, up in the Adj
rondaoks, telling him tina, his brother
George had committed suicide by bio win
out his brains with a shot gun After the
brothers death a note was found in which
George Mitchell had written that he had
become convinced that he must die the
death OF a suicide, and that, SO long as IL