Show THE MURDER SCENE Fatally Performed by Irving A Bishop the Mind Reader CLUB ROOf CHAMBER HORRORS The Iambs are First Astonished and Then Terrified He Lived and Died a ja nsationest Snstonest Special to THE Examiner Dispatch NEX Yom May Washington Irving Bishop who became famous in this country and Europe by his extraordinary and to many people inexplicable mind reading performances lied at noon Sunday at the Lambs club No a West 26th street The circumstances attending his death were singular and in perfect keeping with his remarkable career for it was the effort to perform a wonderful feat of thoughtreai ing which ultiinatsly proved fatal Fridaj last Mr Bishop came to this city from Philadelpl i a to sign a contract with his manager Mr Ritchie and was stopping at the Hoffman house On Sunday night the members of the Lambs club gave one oft of-t suppers and entertainments Mr Bishop being present as the guest of henry E Dix y 11 Bishop appeared to be inC i in-C spirits and apparent eiijoyet the affair very much when Mr Clay Green the secretary of the club called upon him to contribute to the amusement of the evening Bishop readily consented and performed his famous danger trick This consisted of the enactment of a murder scone in the presence of the audience audi-ence After Bishop had left the room a jarfykmfo was procured and with it one of thyiriitiemra pretended to stab another on t lio right breast after which the mar dere rand hisjconfederate proceeded to hide the weapon ealon There happened to be a piano on the small stage used by the Lambs for their entertainments en-tertainments and there was not one in the interested audience who did not believe that the knife had been hidden in the piano but to deceive the audience and puzzle Bishop the committeeman who had the knife pretended to place it in the instrument instru-ment while in reality he slipped it into the other gentlemans breast pocket When Bishop came into the room he proceeded almost al-most directly to the piano 1 when he became very much excited exclaiming You are mull excite exdaiming not dealing fair with me you are changing your mind No its all right green and gold and a diamond pin Then as if bj inspiration ho pounced upon the committeeman committee-man and drew the knife from its place of concealment 1His success in finding the weapon made Bishop still more wild and he rushed across the room and re easing his grasp of the medium ran up to the right man who wore the rroen and gold star and the diamond dia-mond pm and dealt him a blow just as had been ont In the original scene The hearty applause which greeted this per formanco led him to announce another and more difficult on that of finding a word in ibwhich was to be previously selected by tflTe of gentlemen present The mental ciTot proved toogreatfor he suddenl fell to the floor in a state very much Iii a cataleptic ft the incident causing < onsdprabl < confusion among the fostivt parts Just then Dr John A Irvine Ir-vine of No 14 West Twentyninth street who is a member of the club happened to come in and lie a once took charge of the patient His pmmpt use of stimulants soon Drought Mr Bishop around when to the amazement of all iho were in the room he announced his intention of performing the feat previously undertaken Dr Irvine protested agaii st the attempt and all the I gentlemen attem oted to dissuade him i 1 o r o purpose lieu ever for even the physicians allusion to the danger of another attack failed to awaken Bishop < Whr hoI ho-I am not afraid of theo fits for Ive had over a dozen of e and am alive yet But I intend t do the feat even if it kills me just j to show all what I can do Finding that his patient was in a high state of excitement and was exerting that marvellous will power for which he was facous Dr Irvine linally came to the cofflusion that it would be best not to oppose him but get the thing over as quickly as possible when Bishop made another an-other demand which was that the doctor should act a a committee with Mr Clay Green who was to be used as the medium for the experiment Bishop had asserted tb1I these two gentlemen would go to a otstant part of the house and select a word in some book he would find the book the page and tho word Dr Irvine and Mr Green then descended to the base ment and among a lot of od account ac-count books picked out the word Towns cnY afterwards secreting the book in a dismal drawer among some discarded rubbish rub-bish On returnies to the room where Bishop was sitting Dr Irvine again endeavored en-deavored to dissuade him from proceeding Jn what he gravely informed him was avery a-very dangerous experiment but Bishop for the second time remarked that he would accomplish the feat even if it killed him and insisted on being blindfolded AThen the handkerchief had been tied over his eyes he was led down stairs his right hand being clasped on Mr Greens wrist In due time l he discovered the room then the drawer and the book and on the leaves of the latter being rapidly turned over by him he stopped at the right one and then ran over it with a pencil Suddenly Sud-denly he seemed to make a private mark and then feverishly requested that the book be brought up stairs He had scarcely entered tho room where the members were S assembled when he pulled off the bandage from his eyes and exclaimed Quick quick give me a bit of paper and on receiving it he dashed off Dnesnwot that being tho selected word written backward so that it could be read in a mirror He had performed per-formed the feat but he had hardly written the word when he was again seized by the cataleptic covered fit from which he never re In his extremity Dr Irvine hurriedly summoned Dr Charles l Lee of 79 Madi so avenue who on his arrival pronounced thfepatient to be in patent un extremely dangerous danger-ous and critical condition Every description descrip-tion of stimulent was resorted to and brandy and either proving of no avail electricity was called into i play but none had any perceptible l cta though the physicians labored faithfully until the end Up to 3 oclock in the morning Mr Bishop was apparently quite conscious of his condition con-dition and surroundings but unable at anytime any-time t make more than a sign and it was not uisUl 5 oclock that tho physicians gave up hl for at that lour insensibility set in ana the patient perceptibly sank until 1 oclock when the hysteric symptoms rapidly increased and death occurred at noon precisely J A Thomas the advance agent for Mr I Bishop started immediately for Philadelphia Phila-delphia to break the shocking news t Mr Bishops wife and mother Dr Irvine sad I last evening that the heart beats during the attack frequently leaped up t ICO and 170 I per minute and the condition of the patient 1 j was at all ties intensely nervous and excited ex-cited His death was apparently easy the nervous system gradually giving away under the intense strain When reasoned with by Dr Irvine before the fatal feat was performed Bishop said that ho had often fall Jrm a fit after his performances and seemed to consider them as necessary and unavoidable There was at no time continued Dr IrvJltie any symptom of a trance though Blsoop did mention that he had had them one lasting I think he said for thirtysix hours During the whole of his last attack the symptoms were purely and simply cat aeptic During the afternoon Dr Ferguson the wellknown pathologist of St Lukes and welknown York hospital acceded to Dr Irvines request to perform a post mortem examination The brain and internal organs or-gans were all examined and full notes were taken the details of which will been be-en to the public hereafter The examination exam-ination proved the correctness of the diagnosis diag-nosis which was that death had resulted from coma following hysteric catalepsy Mr There is considerable feeling among the incessant friends regarding Bishops frends regaring te use of electricity for they assert that so current was used even after death great a curent use Cen afer that the limbs of the dead man were thrown about as though he were still alive Iti is also a remarkable fact that so great was the muscular strength shown by Bishop while suffering that for two hours after his seizure he tossed the strong men who were holding him as if they were children Many an actor went through his part last evening feeling sore and stiff after his experience ex-perience in the death chamber The word Townsend came into the minute book under peculiar circumstances There is no member of that name in the club but aMiss Margaret Townsend wrote to the president a few weeks ago in relation rela-tion to the Lester Wallack statue and her letter was in due course inserted in the minutes The piece of paper handed Bishop on which to write Dnesnwot was an envelope en-velope and it contained the contract he was to sign with his manager I was the iron of fate Mr Bishop was born in New York in 1847 but he aid not look his age owing this t-his culminate appearance under which he carried a muscular strength possessed hy few men His boyhood was one of priv tion and cure and he began life in a well known drug store To his companions he could do was always 1 marvel because he so many tricks of legerdemain and he fre attended spiritualistic seances qnently atended spiritualstc only to make fun of them Finally he became be-came connected with some of the spiritualistic istic mediums and assisted them in their manifestations though he attracted no great public attention until he suddenly appeared ap-peared in England as a mind reader His feats were so peculiar and unique that large audiences followed him where ever he appeared though he seems to have made little money until he went to London There lte tricks or feats astonished the scientific world while some of the newspapers news-papers accused him of charlatanry Mi Labouchere especially denounced him as a fraud when Bishop offered to submit to auy remarkable test his accusers might decide de-cide upon The result was 1 demand that he give the numbers on a bank note carried by a gentleman in the audience This feat was never really undertaken because Bishop wanted to impose certian condition which were not agreed to He finally began be-gan an action for libel against Mr Labou chere but this never came to trial and Bishop returned to America He has given perlormances in almost every city and has traveled throughout Mexico and a part of Central America and he did many strange feats outside of his re performances For instance driving driv-ing a team of horses through the streets of New York in open daylight in search of hidden objects though completely blindfolded blind-folded and he did the bank note test in Boston when he wrote out the correct figures lh > 479J which were in the pocket of SubTreasurer I P Kennard though the note had not been out of the owners possession since being received from the United States treasurer As an exponent of the art of mind reading and physiology he was known all over the world As his conduct was extremely erratic and eccentric eccen-tric many people considered him partly insane in-sane About ISS2 he was married to a young woman of this city by whom lie had a daughter wild is still living This marriage was never annulled yet after his return from Europe he married in 1SG Ellen G Mack the divorced wife of F Lord Their life proved an unhappy cue for Bishop was jealous and irritable and his nervous temperament led him to do many things which were strange if not brutal l I is even said that to obtain relief from pain of mental efforts he had recourse to cocaine the drug only rendering him all the more uncontrolablc Finally divorce proceedings were begun by the second wife on the grounds of crt infidelity and the exist anco of the first wife On a decree being fronted Bishop went traveling through Mexico and California and ended by marrying marry-ing the mother of his child in order to establish es-tablish her legitimacy Sensational to the extreme during his whole career Bishops death is on a par with his life since he first achieved notor ity I is understood that when his clothing cloth-ing was examined after death nearly two thousand dollars wera found That he had an insurance of 101000 on his life for the benefit of his child is well known Nothing will be decided regarding the funeral arrangement ar-rangement although the necessaty pro iminaries have been attended to until the widow can be he ird from I |