The evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1907-1908, 1907-08-16
DEAD WINDS UP
WILD RACE
IN AUTO
Wife Killed Instantly and
Husband Is Not Expected
to Survive.

NORwALK, Conn, Aug. 16.-Paul
MacCormac, a wealthy cotton broker,
is dying and his wife, who was divorced
from Charles T.. Converse, is dead
as the result of a collision between
MacCormac's automobile and a car
riage near here yesterday afternoon,
Mr.. and Mrs. MacCormac were racing
at high speed on the turnpike with
another machine when their automo-
bile struck a four-seated wagon in
which we're George e. Burtiss, of At
lantic street. Stamford, a Mrs. Norton
and her sister, of the same city. Both
women were seriously but not fatally
injured. The MacCormac machine,
with undiminished speed, plunged up
a steep bank and crashed into a large
tree.
Mrs. MacCormac was thrown directly
in front of the machine and was
crushed between the tree and the au-
tomobile. Her husband was thrown
headlong into the gutter. His head
was cut in several places, his left leg
broken, the right leg almost torn from
his body and he suffered Internal inju-
ries. He was hurried to the Norwalk
Hospital In another automobile, but
did not recover consciousness, except
to murmur his wife's name. Physicians
held out no hope for his recovery.
The accident occurred at $3.50 p. m.
Witnesses say that MacCormac was
driving close to fifty miles an hour,
so fast, in fact, that he was hold
ing his wife in the machine with his
left arm while guiding 1t with the
other.
Somewhere along the road he over
took another automobile, in which were
a man and two women. Mile after mile
they raced along the turnpike, keeping
close to each other and driving other
vehicles from the road.
The other machine, the identity of
whose occupants was not as~certained,
safely passed the Burtiss carriage, but
MacCormac either lost his head or
he was unable to make the turn at
the high speed at which he was rum
ming.
This was the latest, although the
most tragic of MacCormac's expert
enoes. Following his graduation from
the Sheffield Scientific School of Yale,
his father. a Poughkeepsie physician,
died and left him half a million dol
lars. That was seven a ago, and
the intervals have been brief since then
when MacCormac has not furnished a
sensation either in Poughkeepsie or
New York.
The climax of his adventures was
reached when he was named as CO.
respondent in a suit for divorce brought
by Charles E.. Converse, a retired mer-
chant of Poughkeepsie, against his
wife. incidentally. Converse sued
MacCormac for 100000 damages for
alienation of his wife's affections.
The wife first went to California to
obtain a legal residence with the inten-
ton of later bringing a divorce action,
but in her absence her husband and
the correspondent met in a New York
hotel, and, according to evidence after
ward sworn to in court, settled the
whole matter by a payment of $1,000.
The wife returned TO New York. the
divorce suit followed, and her husband
obtained the decree with the custody
of their child. Six days after the de-
cree was signed, on Tune IS. 1904, Mac
Cormac and the defendant were mar
ried, her former husband selling every
thing he had in Poughkeepsie and going
TO live with his sister in Chiccopee
Falls.
There was no intimation of collision
in the court proceedings, but the whole
story came out through an action
brought by Mrs. MacCormac q year
later, in which she complained that her
former husband had not permitted her
to see her son at the times specified In
the divorce decree.