The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1916-03-09
SLIvERS, BEST KNOWN OF CIRCUS
CLOWNS, TAKES OWN LIFE BY CAS-;
LONG A FAvORITE WITH BIC SHOW

New York, March eESqivers, the best
known and most Iaughable circus
clown of this genera.tion-in the
opinion of many white haired boy
who used to crawl under the canvas
back in dim days, the most whim-
sically imaginative clown of all time
had grown so weary of life during
recent days that some time late on
Tuesday night Slivers turned on the
gas and killed himself.
He was still in his early forties. His
health, so far as his friends knew,
was excellent. There were do
nestle trou bIes or other entangle-
ments in his life, those who had been
close to him say. He had a repu-
tation for a sensible quality, no more,
of thrift. and he was the highest
paid clown in the world from spring
to fall on the tanbark and from fall
to- spring on the vaudeville stage.
Therefore it is not thought that fnan-
ciaI troubles could have caused him
to take his life. But yesterday his
body lay i'm. the public morgue over by
the East River.
Underlying the painted grin of the
Slivers that circus audiences knew
there was, as reporters and others
who ever talked with him while he
was making up for a performance
will recall, a vein of melancholy.
morbidness On a Saturday night
recently in the same Madison Square
Garden where SIivers' admirable pam
tonaine had aroused in Barnum q
Bailey audiences enthusiasm and
laughter which sent applause crack
ling from tanbark to roof Orders the
Ianky Slivers came into the Screen
club ball toward midnight.
melancholy at Ball.
~, III in
Garden had given way to faultless
evening clothes, Write gloves and
dancing pumps. AS a reporter passed
him he was leaning against the rail
of a box, chin resting on his gloveo
hand and his face expressionless as
his set gaze was directed out toward
the gayIy costu1ned dancers whose
presence he seemed to be unaware OF.
Fully 20 minutes later, when the re-
porter passed the spot again, Sa1vers
was still standing in the same posi-
ton, his expression as blank as 1t had
been 20 minutes earlier.
ooh. cheer up-naybe it isn't true"
some one called to him facefiously
above the noise Of the band where
upon he reused himself to the extent
Of a gIinner of a grin, but promptly
gave way to his moodiness again
Whatever it was that was tuggtng
1T his mind, the melancholy seem
@--=-1
present week. No one saw him on
Tuesday in the house in which he had
an apartment at 308 west Seventy
first street. Just before midnight on i
Tuesday Mrs. Hattie Everett. who
leases apartments in the house, asked
two men living there after a maid had
answer to repeated knocks
on the door to Investigate.
Tlhe men ratified and banged on the
Tor until some Of the towels with
which the keyhole and cracks of the |
door until some of the towels with |
Policeman Lyon was called from his |
r-at the door was unlocked and
showed open, tunbling to the floor a
oarricade of chairs and other furni-
ture which S1ivers had piled against
the door before turning on the gas
Slivers lay on the floor wearing only
his pa5anas. He was dead. Several
gas jets were turned on full and win
do1vs and doors had been tightly
sealed with towels and papers. He
had been dead, SO DIR. Wolinsky, who
had come with an ambulance from
EoIycIlnac hospital, said, for about four
hours. He had written nothing to ex-
plain his act before committing sui
eide. There was one at that time
to take charge of the body, so it was
taken downtown and across Twenty
sixth street, past Madison Square Gar
den to the morgue at the end of the
street
The regiments OF clowns who ba~l
and tumble out onto the Garden tan
bark every few minutes at perform
ances of the greatest show are in
variab1y unknown even by name to
circus audiences, except when per-
haps once IN a generation, a George
Fox, a Tony Denier, a Dan Luby or,
master Of them all, a S1ivers Oakley
comes forth with a genius for panto-
mime that lifts them from the ruck Of
Even circus patrons who may not
remember by name the Frank Oakley