Page:Brown, T. Allston - History of the American Stage (1870).djvu/311

. N. J., Sept 6.—If Police Capt. Thompson of New York is in this town he is not in evidence at the hotels, and no one has made inquiries to-day at the drug stores as to whether antimony had been purchased. There are two drug stores in the town. One is kept by E. L. Disbrow & Co., and the other by Charles B. Mathis. At each of the stores it is denied that antimony has been sold within many weeks. The Blisses are well known here, and no member of the family has been in the town so far as is known for some time

The family moved away from here some five or six years ago. Since then very little has been known of them. Mrs. Bliss's mother was the third wife of Thomas Placide. the actor, and quite a little romance is said to surround their marriage. It seems that Placide was in love with the woman in early life and wanted to marry her, but her parents opposed the marriage and succeeded in breaking up the match. Sue afterward married a man of the name of Hope, and upon his death, some years afterward, married again. Her second husband's name was Davis, who was the father of Mrs. Bliss. When Davis died his widow fell in with Placide, and although both were well advanced in years, the two were married.

Placide was in destitute discumstances at the time, but his wife brought him some money, and this they invested in a place on Toms River about three miles below the village of that name. In 1877 Placide committed suicide, and his wife died not long afterward. The Blisses continued to live at the Placide homestead, however, which, at the time of the death of the actor, was mortgaged. This mortgage afterward was cancelled with the money Mrs. Fleming received from the judgment in her breach of promise case.