A Mysterious Death

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 23, 1866

A Mysterious Death.

THE Chicago Press, of Sept. 17th, contains the following:

A singular fatality, and one which might be regarded as a special visitation of the Almighty, occurred yesterday afternoon in this city. The circumstances are verified by several persons who were present, including the physician who was called in to examine the stricken person. We give the circumstances as related to our reporter by the attending physician, leaving the reader to draw his own inferences.

About a week ago, a mechanic, boarding at No. 144 Burnside street, was robbed in the night time of about $50. The money was taken out of his pants pocket, after he had retired. In the morning, discovering his loss, he made it known to the landlady. She enjoined silence upon him, and told him that she herself had been victimized, but by whom she did not know, although her suspicions rested upon a boarder named Rosencrist, a tailor. This Rosencrist had been an inmate of the house for some time, and the woman did not like to accuse him directly of the crime, although his actions for some time past, and the extravagance of his expenditures, justified her in entertaining suspicions relative to his integrity. Yesterday morning another boarder reported the mysterious disappearance of his pocket-book, and the landlady, after due deliberation, determined to take Rosencrist aside and question him. Going into the parlor, and calling in the boarders whose money had been purloined, the woman accused him of the theft. Rosencrist turned deadly pale upon hearing the accusation, and grasping a table near him, he turned toward his accusers and denied all knowledge of the theft. They insisted upon his being the culprit, and the man repeated the asseverations of his innocence, and placing his hand upon his heart, he appealed to Heaven to verify his rectitude, saying that if he was guilty he hoped “the tongue would cleave to the roof of his mouth, the top of his head fall in and drop from his shoulders, and that God would strike him dead.” As he uttered the last word, he was observed to stagger, a ghastly paleness overspread his features, and, throwing up his arms, he dropped dead on the floor, to the horror of those in the room. A physician was immediately summoned, who, after examination, pronounced life extinct. The affair has created intense excitement in the neighborhood, and numerous are the opinions advanced relative to the superinducing cause of the man’s death.