A SAD CASE.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3730, 29 June 1883, Page 4

A SAD CASE.

The following piuticulars of a somewhat remarkable oaso of suicide are from the Cromwell Argus;—A most determined caso of attempted suicide occurred at Morven Hills on Wednesday last, Gth instant, which has since unhappily had fatal results. A shepherd named John Oswald Stewart, employed on the station, out his throat in a ghastly manner with a pocket - knife. Stewart -was conveyed by two- shepherds in a buggy to the Cromwell District Hospital, arriving at 4 a.m. on Friday last. The wound was found to bo three and a-half inches long , mid to tho right of the neck. Tho wind-pipe was completely severed, and the throttle also very much jagged. The ■wound was a nasty one and seemingly very deep. Stewart was closely attended to by Dr. Staopoole and received all that care and attention the case domanded. The unfortunate man lingered on till Sunday morning , , when his sufferings closed in death! From the first the surgeon had really no hope of Stewart's recovery, and it is wonderful ho lingered so long, considering the terrible nature of his injuries. Stewart's statement of the affair—made after entering tho hospital—is as follows: — I left the station on Wednesday morning , , Gth instant, along with other men for the purpose of going mustering. We separated on the hill. I did not feel very well, and as the day advanced I got worse. I fancied I could see people coining after me with spears I got frightened, and in running away from the imaginary beings I fell over a precipice. When I landed at the bottom I got hurt, and could not get up to walk. I got much moro frightened and took out my pockctknifo and made this hole in my neck to put an end. to my life. When. I saw what I did I got iiluvmed, and fearing I would mako another attempt I threw tho pocketknife away as far as I could among the tussocks. , This happened about i o'clock on Wednesday afternoon. After I did the deed the dogs left me, and wont home. I lay there all night (during which a severe frost provailod), and next morning I tried to walk to the wool-shed, a distance from where I lay of about two miles. On my dogs going home it aroused some misgivings as to my safety, and the station men met me at the wool-shod. I had been drinking the week previous, but nothing , to speak of this week. Poor Stewart was a native of Glasgow, single, 29 years of ago, and had been five years in tho colony, most of that time at Movern Hills. He has no relations in the colony, and is said to bo well connected. Ho was a wcll-educatPcLinan, and gave evidence in various ways that his calling in this colony was much below what he had been brought up to. Stewart was in receipt of regular remittances from Homo, which unhappily induced him at times to that over-indulgence -which ultimately led to his tragical fate.