James Fair, Jr.

James Fair, Jr., known as "Jimmy," lived with his father, James Fair, at the Lick House in San Francisco. Nightly making the rounds of the bars and cafes, Jimmy fell easy victim to the family weakness. He ws so often intoxicated when he returned to his Lick House room that his father belatedly exercised paternal authority and sent him to a Los Gatos sanatorium to undergo the Keely Cure. Back in town three mojths later, he proceeded to celebrate his cure by giving a party at the palace Hotel. Ther, to the admiration of his cronies, he consumed twenty cocktails. He collapsed while the twenty-first was being placed before him and a doctor was summoned. Less than a year later, Jimmy was dead - by suicide.

Taken from the Langston City Herald, Oklahoma, 20 February 1892. FAIR'S DEATH: Referring to the Demise of the Son of the Nevada Ex-senator:

San Francisco, February 14 - James G. Fair, Jr., eldest son of ex-Senator Fair, died suddenly early yesterday morning of heart failure. Young Fair retuned from an extended trip to the east on Wednesday last, and spent last evening with his father at the Lick house. He passed some time in reading on retiring to his room, then suddenly fell with a cry of pain. Physicians were summoned, but he died shortly after the attack. He was born in Virginia, Nevada and was 29 years of age. Senator Fair is now the only member of the family on the coast, Miss Virginia Fair being in New York with her sister, Mrs. Herman Oelrichs and Charles Fair, a younger son of the senator, being in Europe.

The death of young James G. Fair is attributed to his doctors directly to bichloride of gold treatment. Fair had a superabundance of flesh and had show signs of fatty degeneration of the heart. He drank inordinately, and was always trying new schemes to cure the whiskey habit. Not long ago he had his palate hypnotized, and force of imagination made whisky disagreeable for a few weeks. But when the appetite resumed its sway he drank worse than ever. Then the Keely cure came along, and young Jimmie was among the first to try it. He declared it had effected a cure, but his friends noticed his listlessness and lack of spirit. Now the doctors say strychnia, which enters so largely into the so-called bi-chloride treatment, affected his heart and hastened death.

Several similar cases have occurred here, all pointing to the deadly nature of the new remedy. Young Fair was left $500,000 by his mother, but he could not touch the principal till he was 35, and he died at 30. He had $500 monthly income. He was very popular with the "boys" around town, but before he reached his majority he was hopelessly given to drinking. His younger brother, Charles, now in England, is also a dipsomaniac who has been sent on long sea voyages several time, but nothing seems able to eradicate the desire for whisky. Ex-Senator Fair has more ready money than any one in San Francisco. His real estate is worth not less than $20,000,000.