STRANGE SUICIDE IN MELBOURNE.

Evening Star, Issue 3038, 13 November 1872, Page 4

STRANGE SUICIDE IN MELBOURNE.

The son of a well-known Victorian colonist, Mr Henry Pyke, aged 25, committed suicide at Brighton on the 28th ult. He had been stopping for the last fortnight at the Retreat Hotel, Picnic Point. Brighton, and left there at about twenty minutes to seven on Monday evening, saying he was going to catch the train to Melbourne. He was seen at about eight o’clock in Foxall’s Terminus Hotel, near the Brighton Hailway Station, but his movements after that were not known. At about a quarter to seven on Tuesday morning William Jones, a fisherman, residing on the beach, reported to the | local police that at about half-past live he j had found the body of Mr Pyke lying in the shallow water on the beach near the railway jetty. The deceased’s throat was cut, and he appeared to have bled to death. It was supposed that the deceased, after cutting his throat and bleeding profusely, managed to stagger to the water’s edge, ■.here he fell. His father (Mr Pyke) was one of the oldest of Victorian colonists, and had a sfjuatting station on the Pennyroyal Creek, between Keilor Plains and Bacchus Marsh. When Mr Pyke died, his mother married Mr Cray, a squatter in the same neighborhood, who has also died since. When the deceased Henry Pyke attained his majority ho came in for a large sum of money,'sufficient to keep him independent, but it is believed that he was pecuniarily embarrassed at the time of his death. His mother and two sisters arc living in Englandwell to do, and it is believed that he had no relatives in the Colony. He was well known in racing and hunting circles, but was very reticent even to his intimate friends as to his private affairs, and therefore though several reasons for the suicide have been ascribed, it could not bo ascertained that any one of them was the real motive. Commenting on the above, “*Egles,” in the Australasian, asks:—“ Why are people so anxious to heap up money for their children ? If young Harry Pyke hadn’t been so unfortunate as to have a fortune left him, he might now be a useful and healthy member of society, instead of lying in a suicide’s grave. I remember him an innocent child in the home of his hospitable parents. I knew him when he was an intelligent youth in one of the banking institutions of Molboprne, where, had circumstances comp lied him to Ijyp on his salary, he might still have continued, pins such advancement as his merits warranted. But the curse of acquiring money he had never worked for caused him to resign his occupation, and devote his leisure to getting rid of his portion in a manner unsatisfactory, although not unusual. There are other Australian-bred youths to whom fortune has come very easily, and whose careers cannot terminate creditably, unless some radical change occurs. Let them be warned by the melancholy end of young Harry Pyke.”