The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1888. CRASS IGNORANCE.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 1878, 27 June 1888, Page 2

The Ashburton Guardian. Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 27, 1888. CRASS IGNORANCE.

Tt is a common and wide spread idea among people who ought to know better that if they find an unfortunate individual who has committed suicide by hanging, they should not touch the body until the police has seen it. The same remark applies to some persons when they find a body floating m water or dead by the road side. We have known instances where timely help might have saved life. Whether it is ignorance or prejudice, or both combined which causes people to act so foolishly we are not prepared to say. Perhaps m some instances the want of presence of mind or readiness to take m the situation is accountable for the ex traordinaiy cases of negligence which occur from time to time when an accident or suicide takes place. To find a relative suspended by the neck is perhaps enough of a shock to drive all the senses of some people to the winds but yet it can hardly bo believed that there should exist any one who would be' so far paralysed as not to attempt to do something. A case occurred at Wellington recently, and it is only one of a number. An unfortunate wretch committed suicide by hanging himself and his son aged eighteen admitted at the inquest that he saw his father hanging by the neck and he at once ran off for the police leaving an older brother to' watch the suspended body. Such conduct was most extraordinary, and yet it is by no means uncommon as the police and coroners well know. The probability is had the man been cat down, and an attempt made at re-animation it would have been successful as he had not been long suspended even when the police arrived. Ihe lamentable ignorance often displayed m cases of drowning or accidents is more than the average mind is aware of. Many valuable \ lives have been lost by negligence on tbe part of those present at the time who have failed to provide some simple 1 remedy, which would have stopped the flow of blood from a wound or revived a person who had been almost drowned.