EXTRAORDINARY SUICIDE.

Grey River Argus, Volume VIII, Issue 554, 5 August 1869, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY SUICIDE.

The suicide of Richard Seymour, a workman employed in the Great Northern Company's claim, Chines, who strangled himself on Sunday, 17th ult., presented some extraordinary features, as disclosed at the inquest. Several witnesses deposed to haying seen deceased on Saturday night, and did not notice anything remark, able in his manner or behavior, and yet between that time and one o'clock the next day (Sunday) he >yas found not only to have met with a premature death by his own hand, b\it was proved to have tortured himself in a most strange and unnatural manner just previous, to his committing thp rash deed ; in fact, it must have taken him an hour or so to prepare the instrument for his own suffering, which was a thick piece of timber about two and a half inches square, one end of which was planed or smoothed round with some sharp instrument and covered over with calico, and thoroughly greased with some kind of fat. This stick or post, it appeared, he tied to the leg of his stretcher in an upright position, and after fixing his gibbet, which he' did by tying a chain to a beam in the roof of the hut, and fastening to that a woollen scarf, in which he placed his neck, he got up and sat on the point of the stick referred to, which, being rounded off as before described, by all appearance penetrated into his body ; he then fell forwards and the woollen scarf, which was round his neck tightened, and he died from strangulation. The stick was not exactly upright when constable Durack entered the hut, but was slightly on an incline, as if the weight of deceased's body in falling off it had dragged it forward a little. Deceased was naked from his loins downwards, but had three or four thicknesses of blankets, and an apron of print calico, tied in front of him by means of a belt, which was so tight it had to be cut off. He also had a band of the same material round his forehead and another round his neck, the end of which was hanging down his breast. Deceased was found in a peculiar position, both his knees being on the floor, and his right hand on the table ; but the witnesses describe the chain by which his neck was suspended being so tight that the scarf had to be cut before the knot could be undone. He is a member of the Foresters, and leaves a wife in destitute circumstances at Campbell's Creek. The medical testimony was positive as to death being the result of strangulation, self-infficted. The jury found "That deceased died from strangulation on Sunday, the 18th day of July, 1869 ; and that there is no evidence to show the state of deceased's mind at the time of his death.." —Age.