WORRIED TO DEATH BY BOOK AGENTS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2073, 26 February 1889, Page 3

WORRIED TO DEATH BY BOOK AGENTS

Melbourne newt states that Angus McGinnls, a wood and coal dealer at Oollingwood, haa commuted sulplde under very slngolar circumstances, m fact, through being worried to d^ath by book agents, He took a dose of stryohnine on Sunday morniDg last. The olroumstanoes which are reported to tbe police as having led to tbe commission of the aot are very extraordinary. Several montha ago it appealed two panvassers for the book entitled ''Victoria and Its Metropolis, Past and Present," oalled on BioGianls, and obtained from him aome particulars of his life. Three weeka ago the same agents brought him, two handaome volumea of the work and demanded £6 6s Id payment. He refused to give It, stating that he never authorised them to send the books. They then told him that his biography was written In tbe aeoond volume of the work, page 729, and read a«|follows:-~"McInneg Angur,Abbotsford, Is a native of lovernesshlre, Scotland, who was at eoho :>! until the ape of fourteen, j and oame out to Australia m 1864 by the ship Sultana. He went on to a station m Queensland for three years, after whioh he oame to Viotorla, and followed farm* Ing In Gonlburn Valley for fifteen years with fairly good results. Eventually be oame to Melbourne, and bought a place of land at the corner of Vere and St Philip atreeta, Abbotaford, and ereoted premise! and oommenoed what Is now a flourishing business In tbe ooal and wood t'a4 e >" There are hundseda of snoh biographies In the book, wbloh otherwise Is of oonalderable literary merit and artistically finished ; but It appears that subaerlbers were obtained by the faot of having theae wretched blographloal notloes inserted. After reading the paxagraph the oanvassers told Molnnes that its Insertion was sufficient to obtain a verdiflt In apy oourfc of law, and that he would be nouloted In ooata. Mojanes, however, refused to pay, and worried a good deal over the affair. He even went bo far as to take to drink, and remarked that he did not like to be had In that way. The ollmax was reaohed on Saturday morning, when he reoelved a lawyer's letter demanding payment^ and threatening legal proceedings falling a satisfaction of the olafm, He re- sealed the letter, and, writing the words " Opened by mistake" on the envelope, dropped it Into a pillar box. During tbe afternoon of Saturday he indulged freely In drink, and on returning at night brought a bottle of beer home with him. At 6 a.m. on Sunday he awoke and took a glass of this beer. He then began to vomit, and became ao a'armlngly ill that his wlfo sent for Dr McOilllouddy, who at onoe prononnoed tbe oate to be a hopeless one, and said that the man was suffering from atryohnlne polaoning. He died at halfpast seven o'clock.