Denied Wife's Kiss, Husband Ends Life

DENIED WIFE'S KISS, HUSBAND ENDS LIFE Suicide Follows Quarrel; Woman Uncovers Death After Visiting Neighbors Despondent because his wife refused to kiss him after a quarrel, Elwood T. Payne, 27, of 1116 North Twenty-sixth street, committed suicide last night by inhaling gas. According to the wife, Mildred, they recently remarried after having been divorced. Payne, employed in the mechanical department of a Philadelphia newspaper, and his wife quarreled yesterday morning, she told Detective Clifford Carr. At 7 p. m. when she told him she was going to visit neighbors, he asked her to kiss him goodbye. She refused, telling him she was "still mad," she said. When she returned at 9 p. m., she smelled gas in the kitchen and believed her husband had attempted to frighten her. Then, hearing water running in the bathroom, she entered. She found her husband dead, gas pouring from a hot water heater. She summoned police. Physicians at Cooper Hospital, where Payne was removed, said he had been dead about an hour. Coroner Benjamin R. Denny issued the death certificate.