Women in love with James Shafer of Hemingray tries to commit suicide

ATTEMPTED SUICIDE,

MISS NELLIE FLETCHER, OF

WESTSIDE, MAKES AN

UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO

CROSS THE RIVER

OF DEATH.

Emetics and the Stomach Pump Get

In Their Work and Save Her.

Disappointment in love was nearly the cause of a suicide at Westside yesterday. The principal actor in the dramatic scene was Miss Nellie Fletcher, a prepossessing maiden of seventeen summers, who had fallen madly in love with a young man by the name of James Shafer. The cou­ple had been going together for quite a while and apparantly [sic] apparently were greatly enamored of each other.

Yesterday Shafer told his sweet­heart that his mother strenuously op­posed him going with her. This de­claration drove the young lady mad with frenzy and her aching heart felt like bursting with grief for the person she truly and dearly loved. She at once became despondent and pro­bably concluded that this world of sin and sorrow had no use for her, or at least she had no use for this cruel, wicked world.

Bowed down with grief she came to the city and purchased a drachm of strychnine with which to take her own life. After getting the poisonous drug she went to Shafer’s home, for there she wanted to die, but finding the occupants gone she hastened to the next house and told them what she had done. An alarm was sounded and in a very short time quite a num­ber of people in the neighborhood were on hands administering to the wants of the young lady. Emetics and the stomach pump were brought into use which saved the life of the girl.

Shafer, who is an employe at Hemingray’s glass works, was telephoned, and in a short time was at the bed­side of his affianced. Their meeting was very pathetic, and the spectators were brought to fears when the two lovers met. Before Miss Fletcher took the dose of strychnine she wrote a letter to her mother. Blow [sic] Below is a synopsis of the letter as furnished to the NEWS reporter:

"Ma, keep me as long as you can and see that my ear-rings and finger ring is left on me, and that little box wrapped in paper on that little stand I want it buried with me as it has all the things that Jim' has got for me, and I want it buried with me. Blame no one with this. Give all my sisters a picture each, also Mrs. John Ratliff and James Shafer too."

The young lady will survive the dose, and it is to be hoped that she will never again be prompted to take her own life.