Girl Bride Takes Poison with a Smile

1901

Girl Bride Drains Cup in Presence of Husband

CHICAGO - Mrs. Belle Foran, a girl bride, kissed her husband, and sent him off smiling and happy to his work. Then she sent a neighbor's child after him, and when he returned she confronted him with a cup in her hand.

Her cheeks were flushed as if with pleasure and she smiled as she said: "Tom, I'm going take poison." The boy husband did not try to check her, because he thought she was jesting and held only a cup of water in her hand. Then she swallowed a draught of carbolic acid and sank to the ground in an agony of pain.

In two hours the bride was dead. Foran knelt at the side of the body and cried; then resolutely folded his arms and denied admittance to the relatives who had opposed his marriage. It is supposed the girl was despondent because her marriage had resulted in the estrangement of her husband from his family.

—Dubuque Daily Telegraph, Dubuque, IA, Sept. 6, 1901, p. 3.