The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-04-15
DEAD BY TRACKS.
Body of Unknown Man Found
Near Pauline.
Either Fell From Train or Com.
mftted Suicide.
WAS WELL DRESSED.
Not a Scrap of Paper to Identify
Him.
Had Small Sum of Money in a
Purse.

An unknown man about 80 years
old was found lying dead by the Santa
Fe railway track a mile and a half
south of Pauline at 1880 o'clock this
morning. His head lay within four
feet of the rails and his body was
rigid when found. Apparently, he had
been dead six or seven hours. There
is no clue to his identity except that
his hat bore the stamp of 1.-THE
Model st. Louis.
The cause of his death is a mys-
terry. Suicide is the more probable
supposition. In his pockets were
found 4 ounce bottle two-thirds
empty and containing a solution of
cocaine and another ounce bottle
of aconite, with a small quantity o.
the liquid gone.
The man may have been a cocaine
fiend or he may have been taking the
aconite and cocaine for fever. The
quantity he had taken of either, if
taken at once, would have produced
death. 1t is scarcely probable that he
fell from train. No bones were brok-
en- and no bodily injuries were found.
There vas no evidence that he had
rolled along the ground. as he prob
ably would if thrown or falling from
a train. Rather, it seemed he sat
down where he was found on the edge
of the shallow ditch along the track
ballast, for his hat lay beside him. Yet
one of his half-clenched hands was
greasy in the palm, as if he had held
some oily train rod.
Found by Section Men.
The body was found by the Pauline
section gang under Foreman A E.
Cox when they went to work this
morning. Cox notified Francis Camp
doras, station agent at Pauline and
he telephoned to DR.. H. H. Keith,
county coroner. After starting a
H.. =
the road, Coroner Keith hurried out in
his automobile
The dead man seemed to have been
just where the section gang wanted to
work. The laborers had not disturbed
the body, but were busy with picks
shovelS and hammers beside it.
Foreman Cox explained that the body
and hat had been covered with frost
when he and his men discovered them.
The mans limbs were rigid at that
hour and it was the coroner's opinion
that the fellow had been dead six or
seven hours. A search of his pockets
revealed 81 in silver, which he carried
in a long buckslxin purse. A fine fold
ing alligator billbook was empty. The
bottles, Santa Fe timetable, a comb
and a piece of shaving soap, were his
other possessions.
No Clue to Identity.
There was not a particle of paper
which would give any clue to his iden-
tity. The hat label with st. Louis
trademark was the only guess at his
address. He wore a greenish-b black
mixture suit which was nearly new but
did not reveal the makers or sales
house. He wore a blue flannel shirt
and good pair of shoes. He looked
well kept and his skin was clean. Evil
IDENTIFY he was not a tramp.
On the toe of his right shoe was a
large chunk of mud. There also was
some on the left. On the opposite
side of the small ditch in which the
body lay, the embankment showed a
hole kicked there with these shoes.
This led DR.. Keith to favor the sui
eide theory on the superstition that the
man died in commissions and in kicking
his legs knocked the hole in the side
of the ditch.