The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, August 31, 1903, Page 1

The S VOLUME XCIV-NO. SAN FRANCISCO, MONDAY, AUGUST 81, 1903. INSTRUMENT PURPORTED TO BE THE LAST WILL OF THE LATE CHARLES L. FAIR IS RECEIVED BY PRESIDING JUDGE MURASKY e —— 92, PRICE FIVE CEN DOCUMENT . purported to be the last will and tesiament of the late Charles L. Fair was received last Saturday afternoon by Presiding Judge of the Superior Court of this City and County Frank J. Murasky. It came ‘i through the ail, but there was nothing to indicate by whom it was sent. The purported will bequeathes to'Charles L. Fair Jr., an alleged son of the dec ased millionaire, $800,000, to Joseph Harvey $500,000 and to the | Catholic ( Sylum $750,000. After a few minor bequests the residue is begeuathed to the late Maude Nelson Fair. Should the will be offered for prc ate it will undoubtedly throw the estate into long and bitter litiga- tion. The nanes e late ex-Chief of Police I. W. Lees and the late W. ]-{ L. Barnes appear as witnesses on the purported will. | g TURKISH BATTALIONS STORM HEIGHTS AND SLAY ONE THQUSAND BULGARIANS CA, Acg. 30.—The Bulgarian insurgents sustained a severe reverse at Smilovo Friday, 1000 of them being kilfed, The in- ALONI S sargents, to the number of 3000, occupied a position on a height, which was stormed by six battations of Turkish troops, com-. manded by Servet Pasha, After losing 1000 of their number the Bulgarians fled in the face of the heavy Turkish artillery fire, The Turki sh losses were insignificant, 4 The Bulgarian insurgents on capturing the town of Neveska August 25 seized the arms and ammunition of the ga&!som levied a contrily contrid stion of $5000 on the town and then withdrew to the mountains. receiving no response they entered without molesting the inhabitants. The Turkish troops on their arrival bombarded the town, but Fierce Fighting in| the Realm of Abdul. sl { | HOLD-UP MEN oL Y WITHOUT INY WARNING Raid Office of a Chicago Stret Railroad. Murder Clerk and a| Motorman and Se- cure $3000. After Disposing of Opposition Robbers Loot at Their Leisure. ” —_— 1 CHICAGO, Aug. 30.—Without a warning two men were killed and two others wounded by hold-up men at the barns of the Chicago Cfty Railway Company, Sixty-first. and ‘State streets, at an‘early hour to-day. The shooting was done by three men, who escaped after securing 3000, Three of the men who were shot were working in the cashier's office and the other was a motorman asleep in the | outer office. The men in the office were shot".before they were aware of the rob- bers’ presence, and* the motorman was killed as he was rising from a bench where he had been sleeping. The dead: FRANK STEWART, assistant clerk in Henry Blehlwshot in the head; will re- i | + Bitter Legal Balttle May Grow Out of Document. Murasky yesterday aflernoon. CHEAZZ | cashier’s office; shot through body; died ' D s e e T half an hour later. MYSTERIOUS document, pur- JOHN B. JOHNSON, motormap: shot ported to be the last will and through head: died instantly. testament of the lats Charles |+ The injured: : Louis Fair, was received by | , William B. Edmond, receiving clerk; Presiding Judge Frank J.| +. | shot in left thigh: will recover. 5 The principal bequests in the alleged will | are $800,000 to his son, Charles L. Fair Jr., | cover. new risings. t —Acting Secretar: The robbers took no chances, but dis-| . surgents are sa Navy Darling to-day Te- | posed of all the opposition of the employes | $00:000 to Joseph Harvey, §750,000 for a | BeRis ar [ ceived s cage from Rear | before they entered the office. Choosing | Catholic orphan asylum, $40,000 for hos- of the situatio | Admiral Cotton ing that | the time when the employes were busily | Pital uses for the city of San Francisco, | the cruisers Brooklyn and San Francisco | engaged in balancing up the receipts of | and the residue to Charles L. Fair's wife, RN ES | | Telegrams { clare that the insurg continuing their outr moment the P | gium to for-the Macedonian the Swedish En tinople Governn ceive th Swe will leave the c The Dnevnik f the been mobi- lized without 2 til tention s regards Turkey, but, they will to the frontier to prevent incursions into Servia. SPREAD OF REVOLUTION. A new outbreak is reportec to have occurred in the environs of d several skirmishes place between Giev lonica and there has fight near Edidje- ies losing heavily. t between Kasteria south of Monastir, ave destroyed all he fortified residences “of the ezlthy beys. “ A notorious brig- 1 named Abdul Medjid recent- delivered a harangue to the in- ants of Tetovo, telling them epare themselves to slaughter Julgarians upon the first ap- pearance of revolutionary bands in the neizhborhood. Porte t} Servians are sa | TROOPS OF SULTAN AND HIS ISENTATIVE IN COUNTRY. THIS | 1 i | { \ | 3 Many wounded Turkish soldiers | have been brought into Salonica, Uskub, Seres and Monastir. .. The Turkish troops are reported to be greatly discouraged and many de- | serters have been thrown into | prison. INSURGENTS IN CONTROL. | According to the Dnevnik the | | Hodja (teachers attached to the mosque) in the vilayet of Kossa {are preaching that the time| ‘ for a holy war has come, and that {the people must be ready to kill ;the Christians in the vilayet. In- | surgent bands are said to be in ; complete control of the districts of ‘Demirhssar and Kitschevo and | the chief mountain passes in the I\'ilayet of Monastir. The total strength of the bands in the vilayet of Adrianople is estimated at 6000 men. The insurgents have blown up Continued on Page 3, Column 2. l [y had sailed from Genoa for Beirut and ex- pected to reach there by Friday. Nothing is known here of the report by way of London that Minister Leishman, | at the Turkish Government's request, ill ask that the American ships asked or w be recall 1. Up to a.late hour to-night Hay had recelved no message to this effect. Indeed, the¢ State Depart- ment has not heéard from the American Minister to Turkey to-day. No new orders Admiral Cotton have been sent to Rear and none are contem- plated. So far as known here to-night, 1t is the intention to keep the fleet going until it reaches Turkish waters. Another day passed without further news from Constantinopfe about the at- tempted assassination of Vice Consul Magelsson at Beirut one week ago to- night. MINISTER A MYSTERY. Chekib Bey, the Turkish Minister, who yesterday declared he was coming at once to Washington, did not call upon the Secretary to-day, nor has Hay any knowl- edge of when he is coming. Chekib Bey has never presented his credentials to the State Department or bgen received by President Roosevelt. This renders his position here somewhat peculiar from a diplomatic standpoint, es- pecially as the Porte has never seen fit to conduct any important negotiations through him. It is remarked as some- what significant that he should not have received any word from his Government in regard to the error in the assassina- tion report. Sidky Bey, the second secretary of the Turkish legation and who is also acting Consul in New York City, has received a message from his foreign office denying the report that Mr. Magelsson was mur- dered. It is very unusual for a Govern- ment to send such communications to a Minister’s subordinate when the Minister is in the country, and this lends some color to the gossip prevalent for some time in Washington that Chekib Bey had been, temporarily at least, “forgotten” by his Government. Although no officials of the State De- partment would make any conjectures in the event that Turkey should ask for the withdrawal of the fleet on the ground the night, just after the last conductor had turned in his money and left the barns, the robbers suddenly appeared at the receiving window and began shooting without warning. The first bullet struck Stewart and he fell to the floor without a word. Biehl and Edmend, who were sitting near Stewart, turned to see what was the mat- ter. but before they could leave their chairs they were rendered helpless by bullets of the robbers. Johnson, the mo- torman, who had been asleep on a bench in the outer office, started to go to the ance of his companions, but was shot and Kkilled before he could get on his feet. Making sure that all opposition had been removed the robbers then broke open the door of the cashier's office with a sledge hammer and took from the desk $3000 in bil.s. They then made their es- cape. Four men were arrested chree houirs later on suspicion of being implicated in as! the crime, They, as yet, have not been identified. e that instead of quieting the trouble at Beirut, its presence would only incite further disturbances, it does not seem likely that this Government will seek to satisfy the Porte at the expense of the safety of American citizens and property interests. The demands made by Mr. Leishman on the Porte as a result of the present trou- ble are only part of the questions at issue between the United States and Turkey. About a year ago Leishman, who had been informed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs that Turkey would settle satis- factorily to the United States the ques- tion of stopping the completion of Ameri- ean buildings at Harput, for which offi- cial permit had been granted, and fail- ure to surrender policies of the New York Lite Insurance Compiny seized at Tcher- oun had a disagreeable experience with the Grand Vizier, who rendered this settle- ment inoperative. The trouble was finally remedied in a way, but other ques- tions later arose and are still at issue. President Roosevelt quite recently ex- pressed displeasure at the apparent inac- tivity of Minister Leishman in not ing American claims to & settlement. the late Maud Nelson Fair. The alleged will came through the reg- ular channels of the mail by means of ‘When Judge .\lurasky! special delivery. returned from lunch Saturday he found an envelope addressed to F. J. Murasky, Judge of the Superior Court. securely sealed. On opening the package he was surprised to note a plain, white | “The | envelope upon which was written last will of Charles L. Farr.” This envelope was securely tied with a string, and inside was the alleged will. The document is typewritten on a piece of ordinary office writing paper. The Judge carefully examined the package to ascertain if it contained anything to de- note from what source it came, but there was nothing of any description to give him the slightest clue as to who was the sender. DOCUMENT IS FILED. He immediately filed the document with Deputy County Clerk E. J. Casey of the Probate Department, in whose custody it now is. The signature of the testator bears the alleged signatures of General W. H. L. Barnes and ex-Chief of Police I. W. Lees as witnesses. General Barnes died July 21, 1902, nearly a month before Fair and his wife met their awful death near Paris on August 14, 1902. Ex-Chief Lees died December 21, 1902, moreé then four months after the death of Fair, and while the probate proceed- ings were still before the court. Among those who knew the old detective, it will be readily assumed that if he had known of the existence of a will he would have imparted his knowledge to those con- nected with the affairs of the Fair estate. The deceased's wife, Maud Nelson Fair, was appointed executrix. The document as it now stands will re- main in statu quo, and will have no ef- fect unless someone comes forward and asks that it be admitted to probate. Just what Bearing the alleged will may have on the settlement of the Fair case is is only a matter of speculation, for the document will have to be formally pre- sented to the court for record and its genuineness will then be readily deter- mined, At present the attorneys of the It was | | LATE MILLIONAIRE WHO MET TRAGIC DEATH NEAR PARIS AND FORMER CITIZENS OF THIS CITY WHOSE NAMES AS WITNESSES APPEAR ON PURPORTED WILL OF DECEASED. - | ; — | Fairs are preparing to force the contend- j ing relatives of the late Mrs. Fair to. come | to San Francisco and fight out their case | here. TAKING TESTIMONY. Mrs. Fair's relatives are now. engaged in taking téstimony in New York for the purpose of proving, if possible, that Mrs. Fair survived her husband in the accident that ended both of their lives. Mrs. Nel- son, mother of Mrs. Fair, originally ac- cepted $250,000 as a settlement of her claims against the estate, but later repu- diated this settlement and instituted pro- ceedings in New York State, which has delayed the closing of the probate pro- ceedings here. The first suggestion of a putative heir to the estate of the late Charles L. Fair came through the agency of Attorney Ww. L. Cannon on October 10, 1302, On that date Cannon called at the Fair heirs’ of- fice, and, gaining an audlence with Man- ager Charles Neal, informed him that an heir existed and that his client, a woman, was prepared to produce the child and documentary evidence of its right to share in the estate left by Charles L. Fair. Cannon refused to go into detalls re- garding the child. He later saw Herman OQelrichs on the same subject and to him he was also very reticent. When seen later by a representative of the newspa- pers Cannon declined to be interviewed and from that day until this purported will was received by Judge Murasky the Guestion as to whether Fair was sur- vived by a child has not been revived. Attorneys Knight and Heggerty from the start ridiculed the suggestion of a possi- bility of an infant heir to the estate of Fair and defled Cannen to bring his cli- ent and his evidence intc the courts. MAY BE PREPARED. The reference to Charles L. Fair Jr. in the alleged will received by Judge Mu- rasky may yet prove that the ridiculed alleged heir is prepared to lay claim to a portion of the Fair millions, and this suggestion has awakened intense inter- est in the case. In speaking of the alleged will Judge | Murasky said: | “When I first opened the packaze it | presented such an unusual appearance that I thought it'was a joke. When I read the will I was naturally surprised, as I never had heard of any Charles L. Fair Jr. excepting Attorney Cannon's | reference to an heir some time ago. Then, againh it is more than a year since Fair dled, and I have been wondering where the document could have been all the time. “I am not familiar with either the sig- natures of Falr, General Barnes or Cap- tain Lees. “The document is now In the hands of Mr. Casey, and, of course, nothing fur- | ther will be done with it unless some one | asks to have it passed to probate. { “It may make a great difference in the | settlement of this vast estate, which has long been in the throes of litigation, but, of course, if the will is ever offered for probate the case will rest on the genuine- ness of the three signatures to the docu- ment.” —_——— ROOSEVELT FAMILY GOES 40 CHURCH DESPITE STORM OYSTER BAY, L. L, Aug. 30.—De- | spite the gale and driving rainstorm that has continued for three days, President and Mrs. Roosevelt, accom- panied by two or three of the younger children, attended services to-day Christ Episcopal Church. The President spent the remainder of the day quietly ‘| at Sagamore Hill. No visitors were re- ceived. -