Year: 1868

Z. She postponed her visit to St. Charles
until the 9TH of March On the night
1 Of the 4th he consented to sleep in room
No. S8, small room adjoining to where
she slept, and during the night she did
attempt to take his life by turning on
the faucet of the gas burner in said small
room and closing the door between the
rooms, so as 10 smother and kill him
with the coal gas And the more effec-
tually to effect this she stuffed newspa-
pers into the creviees of the door leading
into the hall, so as to prevent its detee-
ton by the hotel watchman and to pre-
vent his loud breathings being heard IN
the hall when the death agenies should
come on. When accused of it in the
morning she said she had taken an over
dose Of morphine and had bad dreams
TO the effect that he was trying to kill
her, and that Preston had put the news
paper in the erevices. Though much
prOstrated and very weak by the murder
GUS attack upon his life, he forgave her
on condition that she would Immediately
go to St. Charles.


/ He states that acting under bad advice
Mrs. Hill refused to 60 to st. Charles
and instituted this suit for divorce, thus
making the exposure of her degradation
and shame necessary. After an exami-
nation of several days she has left St
Louis county without signing her depo-
sition, and an attachment has been re-
turned as not found


| An order has been issued that both
parties have access to the child, and mel
ther to remove it beyond the jurisdie-
ton of the court The motion for ali
mOny Pendeate has not been decided
yet.


ABSTRACT OF TIE DEPOSITION OF MRS.
HILL.


| After stating that her estimates of the
value of his estate Cs25O, ,0e0) aud the
amount Of his annual income (SI0,000
were derived from his own statements,
she proceeds


Deponent further says that from the
time of her marriage to the defendant, in
January, 1857, until the month of June,
1862, at which time she vent in com
| pany with him to Europe, his treatment
Of her was uniformly so violent and bru-
| tai as to entirely shatter and destroy her
health, and produced such mental suffer
ing aud depression that her life was
thereby rendered an intolerable burden !;
that in consequence of this state of
health and mind, so induced as aforesaid,
her physicians advised her and the de-
fendant that change Of scene and eli
mate we're indispensable to her recovery,
and that defendant thereupon consented
to take her to Europe, assigning as a
reason therefor that he did not want
her to die upon his hands, because he
knew people would think he had killed
her.


That the treatment above referred to
as the cause of her mental and physical
condition consisted in uniform unkind-
ness of manner toward deponent by per-
sistently endeavoring to grieve her by
denouneing, without the slightest provo
cation therefor, her friends aEd relatives
as seoundEsls and villains by habitualIy
using vulgar and indecent language in
the presence Of deponent, and cursing
her almost daily in the most blasphe-
nous manner and without the least pre-
text therefor by denouneing her as a
profigste woman showering upon her
vile epithets, calling her obscene names
and charging her with criminal aleonduot
I by charging, when in rage or under
/ the influence of liquor, that the children
of deponent and defendant were illegiti-
mate, now assigning the absurd reason
for such outrageous charges that they
did not sufficiently resemble Aim, and
again that sheir limbs we're either too
short or too long to be his children, by
insisting, while keeping house, on visit
ing tths servants rooms at unreasonable
hours of the day and night, surprising
them in the act of dressips aud attempt-
I ing indecent liberties With them, thereby
causing them 20 enter complaints to de-
fendant and to leave her service, and by
insisting upon indulging criminal inter-
course with others in his house, thereby
encouraging them, as the result Of his
conduct, in violence to deponent and
supporting them in it /; by spending his
nights away from home in drunken de-
bauehery in the lowest haunts of vice
in the city by returning almost daily
to his house under the influence Of liquor
and frequently in the most beastly state
of drunkenness, and then abusing in the
most unmeasured and Yilest terms this
deponent; by carrying liquors to his
private apartments in the house and in
Producing, as deponent has reason to be-
lieve, strange and profigate women into
his rooms and forbiddiag depoaent. to
disturb him while he and they engaged
in all sorts Of excesses by malieiously
destroying deponent's most cherished or
naments and souvenirs /; By continuously
threatening her with every conceivable
kind Of violence, such as cutting her
heart out and roasting it, throttling her,
sending her to the lunatie asylum and
con6ning her there; by attempting to
strangIe her because she could aot read
/ lily assent to become a firm believer in a
new religious system which he was pre-
pairing to establish in the world and
wherein he was to be the Messiah by
appearing at her bedside at midnight,
with knife in hand, and rousing her from
her sleep, announcing himself ready and
about to cut her heart out preparatory
to roasting it for breakfast, accompany
ing his threats with the most violent
gestieuIations BY clutching her by the
throat and attempting to strangle her
by seizing her and dragging her with
great force and violence about the house
and by giving every expression he could
to the most brutal and barbsrous temper,
which seemed his constant prompter in
his treatment and conduct toward depo-
nent.


When she demonstrated with him
and entreated him to treat her with more
kindness, his mildest answer was Some
people like sympathy and some like
mutton chops I prefer the mutton
chops and you may go to hell for SYM


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