A SAN FRANCISCO TRAGEDY. Unhappy Love and Romantic Suicide.

Te Aroha News, Volume I, Issue 30, 29 December 1883, Page 3

A SAN FRANCISCO TRAGEDY. Unhappy Love and Romantic Suicide.

The most tragic of all San Francisco's tragic deaths was discovered the other morning in the basement of 732, Vallejostreet. There, for a few weeks past, have resided Dominico Dematei, a well-to-do saloon-keeper, and his bride of a month, .Angella Dematei [nee Maria Angella Perazzo di'diacomo), Deraatei's saloon is under the Broadway Block House, at the corner of Kearny street and Broadway, and in it he spent his night from 8 p.m. until daybreak, and even later. Wednesday morning he was detained until 10 o'clock, and when he attempted to gain admission at his front door he found it locked. He obtained no answer to his'oftrepeated knocks, and finally stepped from the walk to his wife's bed-room window, and, opening on the street. With ntuch difficulty he succeeded in clambering up so ! that he could obtain a look at the interior, when the form of his wife was revealed to him, lying prostrate on the floor. He called several times, but received no answer, and, becoming alarmed, he burst in the door, only to find his wife to be dead. With a yell of terror he rushed from the room and to the Coroner's office, evidently labouring under the impression that the Morgue attaches could resuscitate her, if such a thing were possible. In response to his appeals, Deputy-Coroner Groom started for the scene of the death, and arrived in such good time that the rapidly-gathering crowd had touched ! nothing.

THE DEAD WIFE. The scene was not an unusual one in the life of a Coroner's deputy. A corpse, fully dressed, lay on the floor of a handsomely furnished bed-chamber, with no wound or outward sign to betoken that death was not the result of a paroxysm of that treacherous organ called the heart, or one of any of the numerous complications that cause death in a second, where an instant before all was animation and life. The body was that of a young woman of magnificent form, and with a dark, handsome face, of a type that proclaimed her to be of the Italian race. The dress was neat, with nothing of guadine&s about it, well-fitting and costly. It clung to the figure as though it had been draped after the dead girl had composed herself for a siesta, and the smiling cheery lips sreem to mock the idea of death having stagnated the rich blood that formerly mantled the peachy cheeks to a corresponding hue. But young women in such physical condition seldom die without an easily discovered cause and the practised eye of the attache of the city's charnel-house began to rove about the room in search of evidence. Two letters in Italian were found, the first of which, addressed "To all the world," were to the following effect: — "All for love I leave this world all for death. God bless the angels who will guide me to eternity. Why have I not what 1 love in this world. It is better to die than put up with a cursed marriage to one you cannot love. All the time of my life I have given myself to Heaven and to my husband, and I have not found in him that which I sought. I thought I would be content in this marriage. I would have been content to marry him vrhom I love and with whom lam content to die. I have thought I would be more happy in pleasing my father and mother by cancelling my love for the Presidio musician, as my parents did not like a military lover. I have since thought that it were better to be dead than to live with the man to whom I was married against my will. In living I would alway have been a source of lamentation to the man I loved. All the evil I have done will be pardoned — a miserable creature, who is about to part with this world. Farewell, farewell, beloved father and mother. I die contented in the love of Giuseppi Gianatti. Have the kindness to inter both of us in one sepulchre side by side. The second letter, on translation, proved to read as follows :—: — San Francisco, November 6, ISS3. Dear father and Mother : Learn by this that I have received your letter. You think that you have made for me a good marriage. On the contrary, I have been unhappy and heartsick ever since I think of the youth who would have shared his fortune with mine and whose love would have made me happy. It is my intention to die rather than live without possessing him. I bid you an affectionate farewell. With a million kisses and a broken heart, farewell, farewell, bereaved father and mother and all the household. — I am your daughter, Angella. Enquiry elicited that a young Italian named Gianatti was the person alluded to as the one with whom Angella was content to die, and he was accordingly arrested. In broken English he told the strange stoi'y of his amours with Angella and her tragic death.

MEETINU OF AXGELLA AND (,'IANATTI. A ccording to Gianatti, the events preceeding the suicide and the scene in her bed'i'oom, just prior to swallowing the fatal draught if dramatised and portrayed by a capable actress, would sink into oblivion all remembrances of " Camille," " Frou Frou," " Cora," " Mme. Vine," or any of the strongest characters of that description now played by every emotional star in the country. Their acquaintance, he said, began eight months back, and was by chance, the usual way. Angella, as she was generally called, was sent to her uncle here by her parents in Messina, about three years ago, when she was but seventeen. The family were not in even moderate circumstances financially, and the pretty Angella was obliged to contribute her mite to the general support, which she did by obtaining a situation in a cigar store kept by one of her countrymen on~Dupont-street, somewhere in the Latin quarter. Her pretty face proved a great card for the store, and many a young gallant made himself sick by an overindulgence in cigars, purchased so that he might linger about the store and make love to the pretty clerk. Smiles Angella had for all, but they were shallow, and her light heart was not stirred until late in February last, when Gianatti strolled in in all the glory of his scarlet, blue and gold uniform. He was accompanied by a friend in search of cigars, but in addition to smoke Gianatti received a wound more serious' than he could have sustained in a lifetime spent on the Presidio battle-fields. j

TREATING HER SOLDIER LOVER ON THE SLY.' He lingered, and she, nothing loth,' encouraged him by treating him on the sly when the proprietor was looking the other way. Then he walked home with her and then he made a call, and in less than July the two were plighted lovers. All thisitime the relatives here had been endeavouring to drive Gianatti from the field and introduced Deraatei, who was rapidly killing himself with bis stock for love of Angella. Finally they wrote to her parents, informing them of the state of affairs, and, quiok came, the answer, being a peremptory command to Angella to many, as her uncle directed. Disobedience in matters of this sort, ik unknown in Italy, and the poor, giul

sorrowfully bade her soldier lover gqop^by at 1 theft next ' meeting,^ *aifd^ prepared for the sacrifice that was to make her Mrs Dematei. . That ceremony was performed just four weeks ago, and the unwilling bride behaved so vtbll> that JDematei flattered himself that r the soldier was forgotten. Unfortunately for him, Gianatti and Angella met a fortnight' since — by chance, 'tis true, but all the, old passion burst into its former flame in the heart of the latter. Gianatti was disposed to be careless and avoid trouble by doffing his old love entirely, but the fiery advances of Angella soon brought him around again, and in a day or two he was a daily or rather nightly visitor at 732. ' \

MEETINGS AT NIGHT. Dematei being away all night, and .the entrance to their rooms being on the basement, there was little danger of detection, an 4 they enjoyed themselves without fear of interruption until the lateness of the hour warned Gianatti to get away. During the past three days, her lover says, she has oeen feverish and excited, and has continually talked about death, asking him if he was afraid to die, and if it would not be the proper thing for them to die together! When he visited her Tuesday night it was nearly 9.30 o'clock, and he had been drinking heavily. As the, door was opened she bounded forward with a glad cry and elapsed her arms about his neck with a force that Caused him to reel and almost fall. Then she led him to her room and caressed him with an energyt hat almost amounted to ferocity, only occasionally leaving him to pour out whisky from the large bottle for both. Finally, they both retired. After several minutes the woman said : "Joe, let me give you a drink with some bitters in it. You like bitters, don't you, Joe ?"

THE FATAL DRINK. Gianatti acquiesced with drunken gravity, and she filled the wine glasses to the brim from the small bottle. Handing him one, she drained the other, and then coaxed him to follow her example. But "Joe" was drunk and obstinate, and did not like the liquor's bitter taste. In a moment he spat out what he had taken into his mouth, but she persisted, and held the glass to his mouth for him to drink the remainder. He took it in his mouth, but his overtaxed stomach refused to accept the burden, and again it went to the floor. The agonised woman turned to reach for the bottle, and fairly screamed : " Oh, my God, Joe, don't you love me I Drink, Joe, drink -with me. It will make you alive and loving, dearest ; please drink." But Gianatti could not drink, and half the contents of the bottle were spilled in an endeavour on his part to pour out a glass. By this time the deadly strychnine began its terrible work on the woman, and she could scarcely speak as she staggered toward him once more, faintly calling: "Drink, Joe, drink just one. Oh, God, Joe, you must drink if you love me. Don't you see I'm not afraid to die." These were her last articulate words, and with them she fell te the floor, clasping her hands over her stomach, and writhing in the most terrible convulsions until death relieved her some ten minutes later. Sobered in an instant, the dead woman's lover smoothed her dress, took from her throat a pin containing his picture, which she always wore, and fled through the dark back alleys like a hunted fugitive. A search of the suicide's effects revealed three letters from Gianatti to her, all written since her marriage and filled with promises of his readiness to die for or with her, all of which, it is needless to say, were false. An inquest was held by the Coroner, and resulted in a verdict of suicide, with no implication of her lover, Gianatti. Her brother identified the body, and Gianatti testified to the scene in her bedroom, and to her swallowing the poison, after which the case was submitted to the jury withont further evidence. Gianatti was afraid of being killed by the woman's husband, who has threatened him, and Chief Crowley furnished him an escort to his home at the Presidio.