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JUMP THE ARTIST.
He Blows Out His Brains in a fit of Drunken Despair.
Career of a Dissipated Genius Married to a Dissipated Wife.
Edward Jump, the artist, whose famous cartoons and caricatures are so familiar to so many people in about all of the large cities in the country, shot himself fatally last evening a few minutes after 6 o'clock, firing a bullet through his brain while seated in the office of John B. Jeffery's printing house, on the second floor of the Journal Building. After learning of the trials and vicissitudes which characterized the life of the artist -- particularly is home life -- one will hardly wonder that he tired of living. He was under the influence of liquor when he took the awful step, and his wife was found in the same condition when the police carried his bleeding form to what had been the home of the unhappy couple. Being unable to arouse the woman from her drunken stupor, the police let her sleep on in blissful ignorance of the shock awaiting her, and conveyed the dying man to the County Hospital.
FIRING THE SHOT.
At about a quarter past 6 o'clock Jump, reeling with liquor, entered Mr. Jeffery's office, where he was in the habit of receiving his mail, and found there Ben Deacon, the assistant manger, talking with three circus-men. Deacon spoke to him, but Jump made no reply, and the next moment turned and went out. In less than ten minutes he returned and said to Deacon, who was now alone, "Ben, give all my mail to my wife." Deacon said he would, thinking, of course, that Jump was going out of town. The latter then sat down at a desk outside of the office railing and began writing. Two or three minutes later Deacon, who was bending over his books, was startled by the report of a pistol in the room and the fall of a body. Springing to his feet he discovered the artist lying on the floor in front of the outside desk. The prostrate man was moaning and gasping, and from a wound in his head oozed a clotted mass of brains and blood. A revolver clutched in his right hand told the whole story.
A crowd soon gathered in the room, and the Central patrol was summoned. Dr. Rea was called in by one of the officers, but said at once that the man was dying, and that he could do nothing for him. The bullet, a 38-caliber, had entered just above the right ear, penetrated the brain, and made its exit from the top of the crown of the head. It had just enough force left to knock off the hat worn by Jump, and was found in the lining. A small piece of the skull was still clinging to the battered little missile. Why the wounded man's death was not instantaneous is a mystery.
HIS LAST WORDS TO HIS WIFE.
On the desk at which Jump had been writing were found two unsealed letters, one addressed to his wife, No. 200 West Madison street, and the other to a lodge in St. Louis of which he was a member. The letter to Mrs. Jump reads as follows:
MY DEAR WIFE: I have to go --keep calling here for letters; there will be a good one for you from England. I am too excited to write. God bless you. Your husband,
E. Jump
Following is a copy of the other letter:
20 APRIL, 1883. -- GENTLEMEN: I belong to the Lodge of Knights of Honor, NO. 100 Oak Lodge, St. Louis, Mo. If I am disfigured don't let my poor wife see me. She is nervous, and it might kill her. I want to be buried by brothers.
EDWARD JUMP.
A DRUNKEN WIFE.
The dying artist was placed in the patrol-wagon and taken to No. 200 West Madison street, where, for the last three months, he and his wife have occupied two third-floor rooms. Mrs. Jump was lying on the bed in her room, with her cloak on, and in a stupor. An effort was made to awaken her, but it proved futile. It being feared that she had taken some opiate a doctor was called. He felt her pulse, and said she would be all right after sleeping off the effects of the liquor she had drunk. So Jump was carried on to the hospital, and his poor, nervous wife was not shocked with a view of the gory burden in the patrol wagon. The physicians at the hospital expressed the greatest surprise that the man had lived through the journey along the road, and said it was an absolute impossibility for him to survive the night. He was then gasping as if about to expire. He did not speak at all after the shot was fired. At the hospital two more sealed letters were found on the wounded man. One of these was addressed to his wife and the other to Fred Blanke, care of Hannah & Hogg, corner of Halsted and Madison street. Mr. Blanke is a member of a St. Louis candy firm, who is establishing agencies in Chicago. He could not be found last night.
A BLACK EYE.
Mrs. Jump was seen at her home several hours later. She was somewhat hysterical, although friends had led her to believe that her husband was not fatally wounded. She had not yet seen him or received the letters. It was noticed that one of Mrs. Jump's eyes was badly marked as if from a blow. Her landlady was questioned as to the cause, and had this to say: "The husband and wife were both hard drinkers, and never had any money. I have been trying for weeks to get them out of my house. I told them this morning that they must leave at once. Last Saturday Jump told his wife that if he came home and found her drunk he would blacken both her eyes. What he found when he came home I don't know, but Mrs. Jump has kept her face constantly veiled since then until today, and she told me her husband had whipped her. They lived a miserable life, and I predicted just such an ending as this."
AS AN ARTIST.
Jump, despite his dissolute habits, was possessed of no mean talent in his particular line. He never attempted much in the way of oil paintings of any very fine work, because he was too restless and nervous and lacked application. As a caricaturist, however, he was a wonderful success. Specimens of his work in this line are to be found in a thousand different places and in a score of large cities -- New Orleans, St. Louis, Cincinnati, New York, Washington, Montreal, and Chicago. Chapin & Gore's Monroe street place has its interior fairly lined with Jump's caricatures, and a host of people who never saw the little artist are familiar with the "E. Jump" to be found in the lower right-hand corner of ever one of his queer productions. Bessehl's large saloon in St. Louis is a favorite resort for strangers who want something to amuse them, and who find just what they want in Jump's pictures, which adorn the walls. Some of these pictures, it must be admitted, would not do at all for a mixed audience.
HIS BIOGRAPHY.
Jump was born in Paris about forty-five years ago. He came to America when but a lad, and went to California. He wandered over the West and then returned to Paris for a short time. He came back to America in 1868 and was married to the present Mrs. Jump in Washington. He worked as an artist for Frank Leslie in New York and then started an illustrated paper in Montreal, Canada, which failed. Then he went to New Orleans, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and other Western and Southern cities. In St. Louis he is better known than in Chicago. He came here about three years ago, and has worked most of the time for John B. Jeffery sketching for circus and theatrical posters. He always made a big salary and plenty of "outside money" on sketches, but never saved any.
One child was born to Mr. and Mrs. Jump, a girl, now 18 years old, who is in the Sacred Heart Convent in St. Louis.
Mr. Jump died at 2 o'clock this morning.
IN ST. LOUIS.
ST. LOUIS, Mo., April 29 -- [Special.] -- E. Jump, the artist, lived in this city for some years. He was known as an eccentric character, but a fellow of some talent, and very apt at cartoons. Free and easy specimens of his work adorn the walls of several leading saloons and sporting headquarters. He had a special faculty for putting on canvas the salient points of a political campaign, and some of his work in this line possessed considerable merit. Through his paintings he was as well known as any man in the city.
_____
EDWARD JUMP.
The Coroner's Inquest -- His Last Letters.
The lifeless body of Edward Jump, the well-known caricaturist who blew out his brains Friday evening in the office of John B. Jeffrey, is lying in the County Hospital morgue awaiting burial. The widow has not -- nor had not up to a late hour yesterday -- yet called at the hospital to take a look at the disfigured corpse of her husband, or made any arrangement as to the disposition of the remains. It was stated that she could not be found at her home. An inquest was held in the case yesterday morning at the County Hospital, the jury finding that the artist had with suicidal intent fired the bullet which caused his death. From the evidence heard it appears that about 11 o'clock Friday morning Jump exhibited a revolver in Hannah & Hogg's saloon on West Madison street, and remarked that if his business prospects did not improve before night he would kill himself. An effort was made to induce him to give up the revolver, but he refused to do it. That financial adversities induced Jump to take his own life is evident from the following letter which he left to his wife:
APRIL 20, 1883. -- To My Dear Wife, Emily Caroline Jump: Poor darling, I have done it at last. I know it is bad, but I can't bear poverty, and I have had too much of it lately. Get the money from the lodge and make a will for our daughter in case of your death. Get the convent to send you a bill and settle it. Be kind to yourself, my dear, and to Josie. I want you to get all the money from Europe, and in case of your death make it to our daughter, Mora Josephine Jump. Have courage and bear up. I can't do it. Your husband,
EDWARD JUMP.
God bless you.
The letter left by Jump to his friend Blanke reads as follows:
20 April, 1883. -- Friend Blanke: If you can do something for a man do it. Try to sell or dispose of the picture I have in the store. I think the gambler Smith, over the way will buy it, and give it to my wife; she is in need of it. I am tired of this life, and think to do well in getting out of it. For God's sake try to help my poor wife. Your old friend,
E. JUMP
_____
DEATHS.
JUMP -- The funeral of the late Edward Jump will take place from A. H. Sheldon's, undertaker, 168 West Madison St., to Rosehill cemetery by cars.
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