The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1907-06-08
LINKED WITH DEATH,
Articles That Brought Tragedy to
Their Owners.
SOME QUEER CONDOLENCES.
The Hindoo Idol That Mime. Garnet
Ordered Destroyed-A Grim Exhibit
In a London museum-A Ring That
Brought Its Owners to Suicide.

10 SssisStS ~ SGf(l0Cs
OF course the psychologists have ex-
plantations for them all. but there
are lots of things that happen that
somehow do not respond readily to
these so called explanations of purely
mental effect or accidental coinci-
dences'' and all that sort of thing.
When Mime. Carnot, widow of Sadi
Carnot. died and her will was read, a
clause IN it caused considerable com
ment This was to the effect that a
certain small Hindoo idol carved from
a hard stone which would be found
among her property must be taken out
and crushed until completely destroy
ed. Many maryeled at this apparently
singular request, for the idol seemed
harmless, ugly little thing, but her
instructions We're carried out to the
letter
The idol had been presented to Sadi
Carnot years before he had ever
thought of the presidency of France
by friend who had brought it from
India Later he learned that there
was a legend attached to it which as
serted that whoSoever would retain 1t
in his possession would rise TO the
fullest height of power in his chosen
profession, but die of a stab wound
when at the zenith of his career. Car
not traced the history of the idol and
found that for 500 years the rulers
who had possessed it had all died
either in battle or by assassination of
stab wounds. Yet he laughed at the
story, called the facts adduced by his
search a mere chain of condolences
and retained the idol. He died by
dagger in the hands of an assassin;
hence Nine. CARROTS strange request
In Chicago a pawnbroker has queer
looking old turnip of a watch that he
will not sell and will not wear, for he
knows its history. He bought it at
sale of accumulated police property,
and after the sale as warning one of
the police officials related three ''coin-
cidences" in connection with it. The
first Chicago man to own the watch,
so far as the police knew. had been
killed by a burglar, and the watch was
one Of the few things the thief got
away with A few weeks later the
burglar, with a party of his pals, pur-
sued by the police for another crime,
took refuge in a house on the outskirts
of the city and sought to hold the Off
GERS at bay. All were taken alive ex-
cept the burglar, and be was shot dead.
The watch was found on his body. 1t
was around the detective bureau for
long time, and one day one of the
force asked permission to take it home
TO show some friends, his description
of its quaint, curious case having
aroused their curiosity. On his way
back to report that night, with the
watch in his possession, he was shot
dead by a crook who had a long stand
ing grudge against him.
The pawnbrol1er put the watch in
his showcase, but purely as an orna-
ment, and made such investigation re-
garding its history as he could. He
learned that it had been made in
France more than hundred years
a go, and five men who had worn it had
died violent deaths. Yet these We're
all condolences and the curse of the
old woman from whose hands it had
been snatched by thief in Bordeaux
shortly after it left its makers hands /
had nothing to do with the case what /
ever.
In the South kenSington museum, :
London, there is an object catalogued /
q, 459. 1t is cast of a woman'S face /
and was found in an excavation not I
far from Luxor. in Egypt. The cast is I
that of beautiful woman, but the /
face wears an expression of sinister /
evil The man who found the cast |
died within twenty-four hours after he 1
had touched it. and the two workers I
who handled it died within a few
weeks. Three of the carriers who han
lied it on the Nile boat died within a
short space of time, and the man who +
reshipped it at Cairo also died within
eSs than q week after he had played I
his part in the work of getting it to its
destination All these were seemingly
natural deaths, but it is odd that all
he men whose fingers touched the cast
n Egypt should have died SO soon aft
n the handling
Then there is the ring of which
the French detective, has
old US and which now is in one of the
of Paris 1t Is odd in that
t is flexible slightly so. for it is form
ID like a twisted serpent in closely
woven gold links with an opal on the
-op Of the head. two tiny emeralds for
yes and a ruby in its mouth. Seven
such rings are not apt to be in exist
.nce in any one city, yet seven times
Turing the twenty-nin years Girouard
served the Partisan police in a position
which brought him to the morgue daily
he found this ring on the bodies of
suicides. Four times it had been 3
.laimed by relatives Of the dead. and
vice had it been sold The seventh
ime Girouard saw to it that it went
through the usual red tape channels to
place where it could no longer be
yorn-New York Press.