ROMANTIC DOUBLE SUICIDE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2617, 20 April 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

ROMANTIC DOUBLE SUICIDE.

TWO LOVERS GAMBLE FOR LIKE. LOSING, THEY 1)1 K TOGETHER. Tur.iiF. have been sundry vague references in the. newspapers to an alleged double suicide of a romantic nature at Monte Carlo, but till George R. Sims (who is staying at Nico with the dandy bookmaker Lance Logan) inquired into the matter and told the story in last Sunday's Referee, no one had any idea what a truly painful and sensational affair it was. ' Pufjouct writes :— '• There has been a real'suicide at Monte Carlo. At the time the affair occurred T was in Nice, but. information of an official character having reached nv, I determined to set out at once fiir the scene of the tragedy and make mysdf master of the detail';. There is nothing more dilScnlt tli in to arrive at the facts connected with Monte Carlo scandals. Everything that is unpleasant, or that is likely to increase tho prejudice against the pastime of the Principality, is hushed up with the skill that comes of long

practice iu the art of concealment. The place at which the suicide waa _ committed was a small house situated in the Condamine at Monaco, in front of it an Italiau laborer was at work in the street. With this man I engaged in conversation, aud asked him if he had heard of a youne couple committing suicide. The replywas :'I know nothing.' Then I told him what I knew, and rattled some loose silver in my pockets. ' Ah, as the Signor knows so much it cannot matter what I toll him,' said tho man, and thou he pointed out to mo the window of the room in which the young couple had come to their ond. ' Ah, I saw them often,' ho said, ' this last few days while at work on the road here.' They were very loviug, and I said to myself, "its a newly-mar-ried couple." Having- fixed the position of the room well in my oyo, I entered tho hotel, and found it practically empty. Tho proprietress came out to reooiva me. I explained that I was looking for rooms for some friends of mine. Could I see which apartments Were vacant. ' Yes, certainly.' I was taken into most of tho rooms, but none suited until I found myself iu tho apartment of the romantic xuicide. I said nothing to tho lady, nor alio to me. The room was a small but comfortable one. Two wooden beds stood side by t-ide. These were the beds on which two days previously the lovers had stretched themselves to die. The sun shouo iu at the open window ; the blue Mediterranean gliuted below, and as far as tho eye could soo all was peace and beauty and the joyousuess of life. It was from these windows that the young couple had taken their last look upon earth. They had looked out upon tho sunny land and tho deep blue sea with a fixed purpose of self-destruction in their hearts— with the letter already written which was to tell their friends the story of their last days. It was to this pleasant little room in which I stood that they returned on their last night together, with their last hope gone, with tho knowledge in their hearts that, when the sun rose again over the palm "roves and orange trees and the white cliffs and smiling seas they would have past-od from this world to Eternity. What a last walk in the moonlight that must have been ! —tho man of 29, the woman of 10; lovers, fugitives from their homes, she a married woman, and he a married man, and . But let me tell it you, beginning middle aud end — this perfect. French tragedy, this curious study of morals and manners and Monte Carlo, this romanco of tho passions, this little lifo drama taken ' palpitating ' from the pages of the modern Boulevard novelist. A young married man of Lyons fell in love with a young married woman. They met, secretly, adored each other, aud agreed to fly together—to put the seas between themselves and their families. But there was a slight difficulty in the way. They had very little money for a long journey, and they wanted to be far, far away—in America for choice. Then the idea came to tho man that they would take their small capital of a few hundred francs end go to Monte Carlo and make it into a fortune—a fortnno which would enable them to livo in peace and plenty on a far off shore. So it, came that ono day, with a small box and a portmanteau, the fugitives, arrived at Monte Carlo, and put up in this little hotel, where for Sfr. a day you can have a bed and board. They had only a few hundred francs with them. In the letter which they havo left behind they explained that from tho first their arrangements were complete. They for«aw tho possibilities of the situation. They would play until they had won enough to go to America, or they would lose all. And if they lost all they would die together, and givo thoir friends no further trouble about thorn. They were a few days only iu Monte Carlo. They risked their louis only a few at a time, and they spent the remainder of the days aud eveniugs in strolling about the romantic glades and quiet pathways of the beautiful irardens, whisperiutr together of love, aud looking into each other's eyes. Tho end enmo quickly. One '■veiling they went into tho soft mooniisrht to tho fairy laud of Monte Carlo. They had come to thoir last few golden coins. One by one tho croupier's remorseless rako swept them away, and tho lovers went out of tho hot, crowded rooms, out from the glare of the chandeliers and swinging lamps, into the tender nioon- ' light agaiu. 'Down the staircase of Fortune,' arm iu arm they went, alone the glorious marble terraces that look upon tho sea, on to where the foot of the ifrcat rock on which Monaco stands there iies the Condamine. It was their last walk together. Tho lovers were Koing ' home to die. That night, in some way ' which I was uuablo to ascertain, they obtained Rome charcoal aud got it into iheir bedroom. They then closed the 1 windows and duors, and prepared for ! death. They wrote a letter—a letter which an ollicial told me was so touching : that, us ho read it in the room where ; they lay dead, the tears ran down hie \ cheeks. Then the girl—she was but a '' girl —dres.-ed herself in snowy white, and ; \ placed iu her breast a sweet bouquet of ; voilets. Then tho charcoal was lighted, ' and the lovers laid themselves out for ' death, side by side, and passed dreamingly 1 into sleep, and from sleep into death. 1 These are tho fasts of ' tho romantic ' suicide of Monte Carlo.' It is not a, [ moral story. I have told it simply as it ' happened."