UNREQUITED AFFECTION

Dominion, Volume 7, Issue 2128, 21 April 1914, Page 5

UNREQUITED AFFECTION

LOVERS' ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.

TWO, AUCKLAND CASES. The way of a maid with, a man —the eternal conundrum that involves the greater part.of the world's experiences and emotions —played ft considerable part in tho records of the. Auckland Police. Court on ' Saturday morning, when two victims of unrequited love appeared on charges of attempting to commit suicide. In tho case of Leslie Mills, a youth of seventeen years, it was stated (says tho "Star") that a young lady with whom he had been "kcoping company" for eighteoh months had jilted him, and aft.br considering' the matter for a fortnight, ho decided that the burden of his disappointment was greater than he could bear. Consequently when ho was at his home in the Grafton. district, on the afternoon of February 28, ho put a .32 calibre repeating revolver in his pocket, went into the wash-house; and then shot himself in the side. Ho reeled out into the yard, seriously wounded,, and friends at onco had him taken to tho hospital, from which he was discharged this morning, recovered, and .clothed in his right mind, with a bill of £14 14s. for medical expenses in his pocket. He told the Magistrate that ho was not at all likely to repeat the experience, and was convicted and ordered to come up for sentenco when called on, with an admonition that/ho must make a reasonable effort to pay up the hospital account. . ■

The other case camo from Clevedon, a \'orkshircmari named Arthur Hansen, aged 22 years, being the subject. On March 26 be went to Clevedon to renew acquaintance with a young lady to whom ho made an offer of marriage. She refused the offer, stating that she preferred another admirer. He called the next day, and deolarod. the constancy .of his love, despite the young lady's preference for another, and shook hands with her over tho-matter. The following day ho took her his dog as a gift to keep her in remembrance of him, then ho suddenly turned, called niit hor name, and took a drink from a bottle of corrosive poison, which he had been secretly carrying. The young lady at once got assistance, and prompt medical attention rosulted in Hansen's life being saved at the cost of three weeks' hospital treatment, which was assessed at £4 10s.

■ "I have always understood that the experience of taking that poison is so painful .that a person never wants to repeat it' after having done it once," remarked Mr. Frnser, S.M.

Tho accused intimated that the Magistrate's opinion coincided entirely with his feeling on the subject, and he also was convicted and ordered to come up for sentence when called upon.