'GINGERBREAD MAN'
NEARLY DEAD MAN.
PROMPT SURGEON SAVED LIFE
OF WARREN BATES, ACTOR.
HAD QUARRELED WITH WIFE.
LOCKED UP UNTIL EFFECTS OF
DRUG WORE AWAY.
Wife, Who Is a Graduate of Swarth-
more College, Learned Gym-
nasatic Stunts in the Co-
Ed's Gymnasium.
But for the prompt arrival of Dr. R. A. Shiras from the Walnut street police station yesterday at noon the romance of Mr. and Mrs. Warren Bates, begun two years ago while plying in the musical comedy, "The Gingerbread Man," would have terminated fatally. The husband, dejected because the wife turned him away from her door on account of a domestic difference, had taken half an ounce of aconite in order to kill himself. Dr. Shiras gave him an antidote and the ambulance took the young man to Central police station, where he was locked up until he had fully recovered from the effects of the drug.
Bates, who is only 22 years old, handsome, athletic and well dressed, came from a good family in Philadelphia and graduated from a state normal school. While at college he learned to do tumbling stunts in the gymnasium and also devoted much time to amateur theatricals. When he left school he had an opportunity to join the company playing "The Gingerbread man," and seized upon it. With the same company was a pretty young actress who had also a gymnastic turn. Sometimes they used to work together. She was a graduate of Swarthmore college and had acquired her fondness for athletic stunts, while practicing in the co-ed's gym. Being persons from a similar station in life and both attractive, propinquity soon got in its work. They were married, and last year they started out on a vaudeville circuit in the South, doing a tumbling act. In the summer they returned to Philadelphia, where Bates became an agent for a horse and mule company.
"This year," said the young man, "we decided to give up the stage for good. After all the life of an actor must always be an unsatisfactory one and we thought we would settle down in Kansas City and raise a family."
They came here and Bates got a job with the Jones Dry Goods Company. They lived happily until differences began to arise about a month ago. Sunday night Bates went home and there was a lively quarrel, the husband finally leaving the house in anger. Yesterday morning he went back to see her, but she refused to open the door and would only speak to him through it. She told him to go away, that their paths must be thereafter separate. Bates went away and purchased and purchased some horse medicine from a druggist, including half an ounce of aconite. He then swallowed the drug.
"I am going to try to get my wife to make up with me," he said yesterday, "and then I'm going to take her back to Philadelphia, where our people live. Then I think we can be happy."
