Death
Rice was the victim of one of the earliest sensational crimes of the 1900s. On September 23, 1900, Rice was found dead by his valet, Charles F. Jones. He was presumed to have died in his sleep. Shortly thereafter, a bank teller noticed a suspiciously large check bearing the late Rice's signature and made out to Rice's New York City lawyer, Albert T. Patrick, but with his name misspelled. Soon, Patrick made an announcement that Rice had changed his will right before his death, leaving the bulk of his fortune to Patrick rather than to his Institute. A subsequent investigation led by the District Attorney of New York resulted in the arrests of Patrick and of Rice's butler and valet Charles F. Jones, who had been persuaded to administer chloroform to Rice while he slept.
Read more about this topic: William Marsh Rice
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“And yet the sun pardons our voices still,
And berries in the hedge
Through all the nights of rain have come to the full,
And death seems like long hills, a range
We ride each day towards, and never reach.”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“So long as the law considers all these human beings, with beating hearts and living affections, only as so many things belonging to the master—so long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence, or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence for one of hopeless misery and toil—so long it is impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable in the best-regulated administration of slavery.”
—Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896)
“I cannot think this creature died
By storm or fish or sea-fowl harmed
Walking the sea so heavily armed;
Or does it make for death to be
Oneself a living armoury?”
—Andrew Young (1885–1971)