A Pathetic Story.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 216, 17 January 1894, Page 2

A Pathetic Story.

WOMAN'S TRUST AND MAN'S DUPLICITY. Melbourne, January 8 At the inquest on the body of Hannah M'Lellan, who committed suicide by jumping off the Albert Park pier, the evidence showed that she was married at eighteen to a man who afterwards turned out to be already married in Scotland, and left him after they had lived together for two years. She formed an acquaintance with Alfred Birtles, and kept company with him for two years, bufc lie refused to marry her. On the night of the tragedy she talked with Birtles on the pier for a couple of hours, and as he left her she drank a bottle of chlorodine and leapt overboard. William Satchell, a bicyclist, who was on the pier with his sweetheart, witnessing a fireworks display, divested himself of his coat and vest and jumped overboard to the rescue, but was seized with cramps and both were drowned. The following letter was found in the girl's pocket when her body was taken to the morgue :— " My dear mother, father, brothers, sister, and nty dear child — Forgive me mother dear, what I am doing, as T canuot face this world of misery any longer, as Alf. Birtles drives roe to this. For fifteen months iit has just gone on like this. I have been like a wife to him— nothing but * a convenience to him. Now he is tired, he has turned on me and treats me with contempt, I cannot stand contempt from him. I love him dearly, and have begged him to turn, but he is stubborn. He will not make me his wife now, as he promised, or hare anything to do with me. He made me believe he always eared something for me— nothing but false deceit. He even took me last Easter from Good Friday to Monday • — and placed a wedding ring on my finger, called me his wife, and then put his arm around toy iieck and kissed me — to Frankston Coffee Palace, and then he took another name and told me afterwards. Mind, he gave the name of Buckley instead of Birtles. lean see it all now. He filled me with false hopes and deceit. Mother, I cannot bear this disgrace on my mind. Mrs Fuller got to know it, and she turned me away from my situation. She said that she could not believe it of me that I was guilty of such things. Mother, I trusted him, but he had deceived me. It breaks my heart, as I love him. I cannot be parted from him to live. I shall part in death, then he will see what he has done. Mother, look after my child. God spare you to see him grow up and Mo} he prove a blessing to you, as, mother, I am always parted from him. Never let him know his mother's fate. Do not fret tor me, as I will be better off, as there is no future now for me. My life is blighted now for ever through Alf. Birtles. No man would ever make me bis wife now. I could not deceive one after being mistress to him. Good-bye, and God bless my child. Your heart - broken daughter, H. M'Lennan." Alfred Birtles stated at the inquest that he had known deceased for the last 17 months. He admitted that some of the allegations contained in the letter written by the deceased were true, Tint he denied that he was engaged to marry the deceased. They lived with each other as man and wife at Frankston, but the woman had insisted on accompanying him. There was no quarrel on the pier on Tuesday night, and she said nothing about drowning herself. The Coroner (Dr Youll) told Birtles that two people's lives had been lost through his conduct. The deceased had merely charged him in her letter with what he had|adnutted; admissions which wild horses would not have drawn from him (Dr Youll). Witness protested that what he had admitted was true. The Coroner, with much warmth, said that one might be excused for untruths to save the reputation of a woman he had wronged. The jury returned a verdict that deceased committed suicide while in a state of temporary insanity.