SOCIETY SMUGGLER.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12772, 25 May 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

SOCIETY SMUGGLER.

TRAGEDI" OF A PEARL NECK- .:' LACE. ;1 ;_■,■ -Following an , unsuccessful to smuggle JBbOOO" worth W pea rjs' past the New VTork Customs, Mrs Edwin Carson, widow of a Calif oriii ah millionaire, and a prominent society leader on tho Pacific coast, committed 1 suicide by hanging herself from the window of her apartment at the fashionable ' Broztell hotel on Fifth Avenue. ' '.-

The unhappy woman had only just returned fi'om Europe after a long tour m the Far East j .having arrived on the George AVashington from Bremen. She was present m India during the .Durbar ceremony, and had been writing the story of her (ravels for the Boston Christian Science Monitor. , : She bought the pearls m India, but on landing at New Yorlc told the Customs' officers, m reply to ; tho usual question, that she hp.d .nothing to declare. Collector Loeb's' agents, however* have extraordinary, source's, of information, and the officers Av-eio well aware ;of the fact that the necklace Mas m her possession. Her trunks wci\* searched, and she finally confessed that she had the' jeAvels.

.She was immediately taken into custody, but was So terribly distressed that after confiscating- the pearls the authorities released her . on bail to a small amount, and saw her safely to the Broztell hotel. During the night she evidently brooded over her position, and could, not bear the. disgrace of being convicted as a smuggler. Next morning she took some Btrong cord which; had been used to fasten her l| l gg a g e > aiid tying one end round a ■heavy trunk; she .fastened the other round her neck,' nud hurled herself through the window. The room being, on the eighth storey, the body was not observed for some time, and ' she must have been dead over an hour when she Ayas cut down. - , j Mrs Carson' was s:, very wealthy woman, so that her suicide could not have been due to financial worries.. On tho Writing table m her room the police found some sheets of manuscript on which she hud evidently been engaged before she made up her mind to end her life. She had nearly £500 m notes and gold m her possession, as Well as a letter of credit for £1000,