SUICIDE AND INSANITY.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1018, 2 November 1912, Page 4

SUICIDE AND INSANITY.

At a Scarborough inquest the coroner, Mr George Taylor, commented on juries verdicts in regard to suicides. Arthur Storm, thirty-four, a porter at the Grand Hotel, had beeu found dead in a pantry with two jets of a gas stove turned on, and the jury found that be committed “suicide whilst temporarily insane.” The coroner pointed out that there was no evidence as to the state of the man’s mind. The Foreman ; “I think a man who takes his life is always insane when he does it.” The coroner said he appreciated that, and the foreman was not alone in that opinion. Juries, however, often returned a verdict of unsound mind out of sympathy with the relatives, but they forgot another side. A father, it might be, committed suicide, aud left a widow and children. The latter had their way to make in the world. Later oue of them might have a chance of an appoiutmeut to a responsible position where a level-headed man was required, but prospective employers finding their father committed suicide while supposedly insane, might refrain Irom giving that son the responsible position. There was nothing whatever to suggest that the man in the case under review was insane. Finally the jury altered their verdict to the effect that the man committed suicide, but there was no evidence to show the state of his mind.