DETERMINED SUICIDE AT REEFTON.

Greymouth Evening Star, Volume XXXI, 1 November 1901, Page 2

DETERMINED SUICIDE AT REEFTON.

Considerable ' excitement was occasioned ih Reefton yesterday (says the Herald) when it became known that a young man named William Haub, about 18 years of age, had commuted suicide. From what we can gather it appears the young man had to all appearances been in bis usual state of health, and retired to bed at the usual hour. At 4 o’clock his room mate, Mr G Wilson, was aroused by deceased getting out of bed, and on enquiring the cause was answered that he was going ont to the back, and Wilson went to sleep again. On the household rising, the sister of deceased found a note on the table addressed to one of the young men boarding there. The letter stated that it was his (the writer’s) intention to commit suioide, and that his body would be found in the shaft on the hill at the back of the house. This at once thoroughly aroused them and getting up they proceeded to the spot indicated, where a most gruesome sight met their view. At the side of the hole they found the coat of deceased also his watch, and the ground around was literally covered with fragments of the unfortunate yonng man’s head. The body was in the water, and the gun with which the deed had been committed was standing muzzle upwards in the water. They at once informed the police, who proceeded to the spot, and drew the body out of the water. The upper part of the head was completely gone, only the face remaining, and altogether the body presented a most gruesome sight. A string had been attached to the trigger of the gun and was held in the hand, and the muzzle placed in the mouth, and when the body was recovered the hand was still holding the string. In a pocket book found in deceased’s coat was written in pencil “ Pulled the trigger at twenty minutes passed five this morning.” The body was at once conveyed to the morgue, and the terrible news broken to his mother. No cause is assigned to rash act, but the fact that bo had been out of employment seemed to prey on the mind of deceased.