Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-04-23
REORGANIZATION of National Guard is Starte
DYING WOMAN
DEFIES POLICE
TOLEARN NAME.
Outwits Efforts to
Identify Her-Eye
Glasses Clew?

! Chicago. April 23-On a seem
ingly Unimportant mark on a pair
! Of eye glasses detectives base their
, hope of learning the identity of a
woman in the county hospital who
has thus far successfully pitted her
wits against those of the keenest
police, physicians and reporters.
who have sought to find out who
she it Before she swallowed pois-
on in hotel room As hours ago,
Miss Brown" had carefully re
moved all means of identification
from her effects-all except the
registration numbers family
scratched on the gold frames ct
her eye glasses by New York ops
tician. The optician has been wired
to in hope of his being able to tell
Miss Browns" identity
Well dressed. apparently well
educated and with a taste for
classical literature as books in her
effects would indicate. she parties
all questioners in her lucid inter
walls.
| am, she says.
Nor can it be learned why she
wished to die. Hospital physicians
today said her condition is crit
ical.
Not Mrs. Leonard.
Probability of early Identification
appeared eliminated last night.
Frank John Leonard, 1889 n. Clark
street, who read in early newspa-
per editions Monday evening CT
the woman's act and rushed to the
hospital crying: That is my wife
failed to return and establish her
identity Friends Of Leonard and
his missing wife. numbered among
the throng of curious who called at
the hospital, positively asserted
that the woman was not Mrs. Leon
ard.
And there was nobody else able
to name this person who, looking
into seemingly inevitable death,
persists in meeting it unwept,
friendIess.
Exhaustive investigation by de-
tectives developed two more cleWs
which may frustrate the woman's
screen of secrecy One was a tiny
watch found in her effects.
Initials On Watch.
Its case. silver; its movement.
an old Swiss. And on the back are
engraved elaborate initials. worn
by time. which have been read var
iously by jewelers. One decoded
them as Fl. Mem. W." Another as
H McM. ". And another as IF. NJ.
NJ. n"
The second cIew presented itself
in a spectacle case. This led the
search to New York, for the opti-
clans name, printed within it, was
that of j. Ehrlich & Sons, and be-
low it five New York addresses ard :
one in Brooklyn. These were 233
Sixth avenue, $50 Sixth avenue, II
West Forty-second street, 1S4
Broadway and 101 Nassau street, i
New York, and 49S Fulton street, !
Brooklyn.
Local authorities imm mediately !
asked the eastern police to check /
with the jeweler in an effort to
trace the purchaser.
May Be From East.
The spectacle case. coupled with !
the fact that the mystery woman's |
shoes had been purchased from a !
Regal store in New York last April Z!
and that she wore rubbers bought !
from the Hub store in Boston lead |
the police to believe that she came
to Chicago from the east.
Throughout the day the subject
of the investigation lay propped on
pillows in ward 81 at the hospital,
matching her wits with
shrewd questions after her iden-
tity and reading light fiction.
from VI he Sltf-
fered agonies at first, had dimin-
ished. And, firm in the belief that
her aim to die would shortly be
achieved, she appearedin excellent
spirits.
She read no more from her Bal
zac. Rather, she fancied the pub
Iication of a doughboy's letters to
MS sweetheart and laughed heart
ly at the crude manner IN which
ne conveyed his love messages.
Only once did she evinee annoy
ance. That was when breakfast
was served her by DR.. Carl Meyer.
why, l don't want to eat" she
that might keep me
rom dying"
That is what We are trying to
10" the physician responded. Il
When the woman refused TO par
AXE of the bacon and eggs DR.. Mey-
sr remarked:
We may not be able to make you
ak, but we can make you eae
Food can be forced into ones
you know"
She sighed and ate Once tasting
If the food, she consumed it raw
MEXICAN REBEL SLAIN.