A Mysterious Suicide

Manawatu Herald, 7 March 1899, Page 3

A Mysterious Suicide

* DRIVEN TO DEATH BY NIGHT}fc. fi MARE. What the dreadful influence or 1 secret was which led Harold Withall, tk. a young Oxford undergraduate, in good health and spirits, to hang himself will never be known. It, i3 a most mysterious case. The deceaped was the eon of a prosperous Bolicitor at Putney. At the inqueet the poor mother, who was in great grief, said that her boy bad done extremely well at school and college. He arrived home on Dec. lO.h from Oxford for the Christmas vacation. He had good health, and was of very equable temperament, and not more religious y&sn the other members of the family. Latterly, be had been in good spirits. On Wednesday he had breakfast with them at nine, and luncheon at 1 p m ; then he went out cycling with his brother, and at 4.80 he took tea with them all. After dinner, at 6 54, he went to the smoking room with his father, having previously been iut shooting. In the evening he had some sandwiches and claret ; that would be about 10 o'clock, and he was laughing with them about a favourite dog. At shoot 10.60 be wishsd them " good night," and went to bed, and witness again wished him " good night " before she and her husband retired. He elept alone in the room in which the jury had just viewed thp body. On Thursday mcrning, at 8 30, witness knocked at his door a3 usual, and entered his room, and found him hanging by the neck to a silk hand kerchief, which was fastened to the bed rail. Witness at once cut him down and sent for a doo'or. She 1 had heard nothing during the night. The waist-belt produced was attached to the upper part of the bedstead, and the handkerchief was tied to that. Her son's death was a p?rfpc*; mystery to her. She knew of no reason whatever fo** the act. He wao doinp well at the college, and was loved by everybody, and enjoyed his life. Dr Horace Jefferson then stilted that he had attended the deceased f ora bis birth, and should say that he was a very welUbalanc^d, wpII minded and < w. j ll educated y >»th without any specially extravagant views. Witness had not noticed am trace of brain mischief. The only M explanation he cou'd offer w-jb thit the dtceast d had a fie and n hiillue.i nation, folowd by euicid^ Hi feet were barely clear rrf the floor. j*^Tbe bed rail was about 9ft. from the 4L-~ g"roqjf}d, The coroner, in sunitiiing up, paid the 1 base was one of the most inexplicable he had ever investigated. Hore was a lad with an unbroken record of ntDtteeu years terminating his fx existence without any known cause. The jury returned a verdict of tern. pirary insanity, and expressed their sympathy with the family in their bereavement.