A STUPID POPULAR ERROR.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1510, 18 March 1887, Page 3

A STUPID POPULAR ERROR.

("Timaru Herald") Q'iHe recently New Zealand h*a furnished two remarkable inatanoaa of the ignorant belief that when a person is found hanging by the nock, tho finder must not cat him down, but must wait 1 until the police havo inspected the bndy ! One of these cases occurred In Wellington. The nuioide, a small shopkeeper, was found haugfng up to a beam m hla bock premises. Evidence given at the inquest showed that he could have been there only a very short time, and that, if proper measures to restore animation had been promptly resorted to, his life might have been saved. But the friend who made the dismal discovery leisurely surveyed tbe scene, and then went into the house and remarkod that—' • Billy had done it at laßt." Billy meanwhile was left suspended, and so remained for a considerable time longer, watting for tho kind ministrations of the first cmstablb who should ohanoe to look m. When the wretched man was cut down after a lapae of time, variously estimated at from a quarter to three-qnarters of an hour, life, at might have been expected, was extinct. A precisely Bimllar oase occurred last week m Dunedin. A man named Kirk was found hanging, and the person who first saw him quietly let him hang, and went away to report the olr* oumatanoe and to bring an ncqnnlntanoe to stare at the body. Possibly Kirk was dead when first seen, and possibly not, but there Is no doubt that when at last the ropa was severed he was as dead as Julius Ctciar. At the inquest the why and wherefore of having allowed him to remain hanging was stated m pretty nearly the name words as thoae m»de ute of In the Wollinglou caae. The finder believed that it waa wrong to out down a body before the arrival of the police. The coroner mildly remarked that " it was a mistake," and there was an end of the matter. We call it not merely a mistake, but brutal stupidity or callousness, under the inflaenoe of whioh a m*n is prompted not to save human life but to pay a superstitious regard to a rule or lan which haa m existence except m hlB own imagination. Wo are ht»ppy to believe that most men would not be deterred from attempting to nave life even if there were auoh a groteiqiely absurd rule or law; but, nevertheless, the cases we have cited do not Btand alone. They aro merely the latest instances m w.hlch the policeman hos been waited for as tho only person authorised to give the would-be eu cide a chanoe for his life. But unfortunately for tho worldly proßpeots of half hanged people, tho police when thpy appear on the scene are not always to be depundod on to follow the dictates of common sense. In Auckland some years ago, there was a oase m whioh a constable, having found a poor old woman hanging up to the rafteio, left her m that potition fcr three days till the coroner's jury went to view the bidy. We need scarcely say that ehe w*a dead when they aaw her. The constable waa atked his reason for not having cut her down at first, and replied that it would have been "contrary to the statute m that case made and provided." His "miatftko" w»s followed by his' immediate dismissal from the force. But he found a champion m the person of a duly qualified medical pracftioner, who wrote a filming Utter to an Auckland newnpspsr conaurigg the authorities for tholr tyianny, and asserting confidently that the policeman wns right, and that, ncoordlog t> law, the old woman would have had to remain suspended for ever unlooa a Coroner and a Ooroner'a jury had viewed her. Thus we Bee that this error (a pretty widoly distributed, and la aometimea held by people whoso oduoationand surroundings ought to teach them better. Wo have no doubt that life is thus occasionally sacrificed, tut not very often, for New Zealand colonists are pot a Buloidal people ; men who hang themselves up t > tho raftora are sometimes dead aB door nails before anyone happens to uee them ; and, finally, there is muoh common Bonae and humanity left m the world, and not many would follow m the footsteps of the conttable whose conduct we have just noticed. However, as there la a State avntem of eduoatlon, some attempt might be made In the sohoola to explode popular fallacies and errors, of whioh there aro many carefully handed down from generation to generation. Amongst them ia the error that a man found nangi g must not bo cut down till tho polioo have had a look at him. The rising generation might be taught that the proper thing to do is to whip out a knife at once and sever the rope before going away and spreading the nevra that " Billy had done it at last."