Jasper County Democrat, Volume 15, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 August 1912 — ANOTHER SUICIDE IN JASPER. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

ANOTHER SUICIDE IN JASPER.

Horace Gilbert of Carpenter Tp., Ends Financial Troubles With Carbolic Acid.

Horace Gilbert, aged 42 years, who resided on the Peter Buck farm in the west part of Carpenter tp., committed suicide Saturday by taking carbolic acid. He leaves a wife and seven children, the two oldest boys being self-supporting and are now working on farms in that vicinity. Gilbert seems tp have been one of those unfortunate ne’er-do-wells, and what personal property he had was covered perhaps three or four times with chattel mortgages. He gave J. L. Brady of Rensselaer a mortgage on his ’9ll corn crop, some horses and some cattle, to secure an indebtedness for seed grain and money furnished him that year in. the sum of $139. Mr. Brady bad been unable to get a settlement of the amount, and as he had sold his elevator here recently and was preparing to move away, he wished to get this and other matters straightened up, and placed them in the hands of attorney W. H. Parkison.

Mr. Parkison went out to see Gilbert a few times, and the latter made promises of paying up. He said that the horses had all died and the corn he had hauled to the Murray elevator at Goodland and sold. Parkison then saw Mr. Murray and the latter refused to pay Brady for the corn until he had exhausted the other property, when, he said, he would settle any difference remaining unpaid. Accordingly it was agreed with Gilbert that the cattle should be brought to Rensselaer and sold on the street Saturday afternoon at public auction. Gilbert wanted Parkison to send someone out after the stock, and accordingly William Shesler was secured to go after it. He went to the place Saturday forenoon and Mrs. Gilbert refused to let him have the stock, saying it belonged to her. She also de-

nounced her husband as a good-for-nothing, and it was evident that there had been a family row that morning before Gilbert had gone l to a neighbors to help thresh. In the meantime, Mr. Parkison had gone to Kentland on business and had told Shesler that if there was any difficulty about getting the stock to remain in the neighborhood until he came along back. Accordingly Shesler went to a nearby neighbors and waited for Parkison to return. About boon he saw Gilbert drive by in a buggy, and he was leaning over as if something was wrong with him, so Shesler followed the buggy to Gilbert’s place, ! where the horse stopped, and he then found that the man was unconscious and the reins had to be pried from his hands. The strong odor of carbolic acid told the story.

Gilbert was taken from the buggy and laid on the grass beside the gate, and there being no antidotes except some sweet milk, which was forced down his throat, a doctor was sent for, but the man died in a very short time after being taken out of the buggy.

The carbolic acid, 10 cents worth, with which he ended his life, was bought, it is said, at Cooke's drug store in Goodland only a few days before, so that the act was a premeditated one.

Gilbert was not really a bad man, it is said, but he was a poor manager. He had been going from bad to worse and it is reported the .property had been mortgaged to others besides Mr. Brady, and this fact together with the fact that he was likely to get in trouble with Mr. Murray, the Goodland elevator man, for selling him mortgaged corn, prompted him to end his troubles for all time.

The body was taken back to his old home in Illinois for burial. Goroner Wright held an inquest and the verdict was suicide by the carbolic acid route. This is the third suicide in Jasper county this year.

BREAKING IT OPEN AGAIN C. R. Macauley, New York World.