The day book. [volume], April 11, 1916, LAST EDITION, Image 28

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
Dear Mary, I know I will love her
"wedding gift"
(To Be Continued.)
o o
WAS CHICAGO GIRL HOUNDED
TO DEATH BY NEWSPAPERS?
The Chicago papers-printed their
last story about Irma Kilgallen today.
The girl who has been hounded by
reporters for five years, whose every
important action and each little fam
ily trouble has been "played to the
limit" by the papers, killed herself
last m'ght in Omaha.
The suicide came just when the
newspapers of Omaha scented a lit
tle scandal because Irma had slipped
into the city unexpectedly and sur
prised her husband, Joe Howard, ac
tor and song writer.
Her life and death is a fair sam
ple of what the scandal-grubbing
newspapers can do when they de
cide to make a person or family
"news."
In the belief that the public would
like to read of the doings of an er
ratic young lady withs-money and
good looks, the papers played so
heavily on her doings that the family
house at 3230 S. Michigan av. was
almost constantly haunted by nervy
newspaper reporters.
Miss Kilgallen, as she was always
known to the papers, made an awful
mistake in marrying a count who
had a habit of getting into scrapes
in which the police often figured.
He was rather a cheap specimen of
Belgian nobility, and when Irma cast
him oft penniless he talked readily to
the press of the city and her status
with the feature-seeking papers was
fixed.
The divorce was replete with sto
ries. How the Count Jacques von
Mourik de Beaufort had thrown his
young heiress-wife over the banister
of the Kilgallen home; how they tried
to enter society here; how the count
was whipped by the girl's father; all
was sensationally told by the Chica
go papers. The stories tiaveled
around.the world. ,
The newspapers got stories in
which she was pictured as calling
him a money-seeker and cad and he
was accusing her of intimacies with
Battling Nelson, the prizefighter.
The longest period of rest the girl
enjoyed was after the count was
gone and forgotten. For over a year
she was allowed peace. Then she
married Joseph Howard, vaudeville
actor, a few weeks ago, and the pa
pers raked up all the old scandal.
Things were quiet with the How
ards until yesterday, when Irma took
a notion to follow her husband into
Omaha, where he was playing. What
happened has not been discovered by
the Omaha newspapers, but they
quarreled. The name of the woman
who was playing opposite Howard
was mentioned and the bride of a few
weeks left the theater sobbing.
She hurried to her room in a near
by hotel and killed herself with a
small revolver. It is believed that
she could not endure the publicity
she expected if the trouble with her
husband was made public
o o
JUDGE FINES CAFE OWNER
AFTER GIRLS ARE ARRESTED
A well-dressed young fellow who,
according to the story of two girls
in the morals court, picked up an ac
quaintance with them in the Boston
Store, was fined $100 yesterday. He
was Karl Busch, owner of the Dela
ware cafe, 153 N. pearborn st.
The girls were arrested in the loop
with two fello,ws. They told Judge Uh
lir they were on their way to a hotel
and that they had picked up the men
in the Delaware -cafe.
In explaining how they came to be
in the Delaware cafe they declared
that Busch, the owner, had flirted
with them in the Boston Store and
had invited them to come out to his
place.
In one block near Gault cL, "Little
Italy," 779 different families made re
quest upon the United Charities for
aid inone yeas, , , A .
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