Corpulence the Cause of Suicide.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 295, 17 March 1881, Page 2

Corpulence the Cause of Suicide.

An exchange contains the following strange story : —“ That the mere accident of unusual corpulence should prompt a young and healthy woman to. destroy herself is a sufficiently strange occurrence to excite general surprise ; but when the psychological mystery involved in such a motive for self-mur-der is further complicated by the faqt that the suicide was an orphan, brought up by public charity, we cannot but regard so anomalous a deed with the utmost astonishment. Orphans, parochially nurtured, are by no means wont to wax inconveniently fat, far less to attain a measure of obesity so extravagant as to be incompatible with their toleration of mere existence. Yet such would appear to have been the case with Marie Speiz, a native of Brunn, in the Krautmarket, of which thriving city she has for some years past retailed sausages to her fellow citizens. , Although, like the immortal Fat Boy in ‘ Pickwick,’ she was an orphan; yet unlike that epicurean philosopher, she , took a sinister view of her abnormal dimensions. A few weeks ago, the sausage trade having proved unremiinerative, she left Brunn for Vienna, with the object of taking domestic 1 service in the Kaiserstadt. Shortly after her departure from her native town, her sister-in-law received a letter from her, containing th§ melancholy; announcement that she could no longer put up with Her corpulence, which exposed her to and had consequently resolved to drown herself. Her body has since been found itl the! _ Danube, near Klosterneuburg.