Jasper County Democrat, Volume 11, Number 84, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1909 — MRS. LORILLARD SUICIDE BY GAS [ARTICLE]

MRS. LORILLARD SUICIDE BY GAS

Tobacco King’s Wife Gives Washington a Shock AFTER SOCIETY RECEPTION Leaves Note Which Husband Refuses to Mates Public—Within Few Hours of the Time Bhe Bought Death Bhe Had Been Fellow Guest of Dlgnltarlet and Officials and Their Wive*—Belief Is That She Was Incurably 111. Washington, March 26. —Face to face, as she believed, with years of physical suffering, Mrs. Pierre Lorillard, Jr., aged forty-nine, wife of the tobaccco magnate, committed suicide by asphyxiation at her home near the fashionable Dupont circle In this city. The death was made more dramatic by occurring only a few hours after Mr. and Mrs. Lorlllard had been the guests at a dinner given in honor of Lady Paget. Mrs. Lorillard left a note which the coroner has seen but which the widower has declined td make public. Mrs. LorHlard was subject to frequent attacks of despondency, it is said.

The last person to see Mrs. Lorillard alive was Mr. Lorillard. He bade her good night as they separated to go to their apartments after returning from the -Paget reception. She had joined freely in the social festivities, some of the other guests being the Brazilian ambassador ana Mme. N«buco, the Danish minister and Countess Moltke, the secretary of the navy and Mrs. Meyer, Senator and Mrs. Lodge, Senator - and Mrs. Aldrich, Senator Root, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Bacon, Rear Admiral Cowles and Captain Archibald Butt, military aide of the president. Mrs. Lortllard’s bed had the appearance of not having been occupied. When found her body was clothed In a dressing gown. The dog collar of diamonds she wore at the dinner had been removed before she went to the bathroom, but the costly circle of diamonds that adorned her hair had not been displaced. The Lorillards have lived at HIII- - place, which is only a Btone’s throw from Dupont circle and in tbtf heart of the fashionable community between Dupont and Sheridan circles, since January. Mrs. Lorillard before her marriage in 1881 was Caroline J. Hamilton. She is survived by two sons, one of whom is now traveling In the Orient, and the other is In college In New York.