STARVED FOR LOVE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1058, 1 February 1913, Page 4

STARVED FOR LOVE.

GIRO’S BROKEN ENGAGEMENT.

The pitiful tragedy of a modern Ophelia was described in the cold words and with the gloomy formalities of a coroner's enquiry at Camberwell, London, recently. Ethel Martha Louisa Foyle, disappointed in love, her engagement broken, sank into melancholia. She spoke little, refused food and pined and died in a private asylum. Her brother, Robert Reginald Foyle, in the Civil Service, narrated the efforts of tbe family to restore her. His sistsr he described as a clever girl of twentyeight. She lived with her parents at Colville Houses, Colville Terrace, Bayswater. Since the engagement was broken off she fell into a state of melancholia, from which, in spite of her own attempts to rally herself, she could not recover.. She had been such a quiet girl that they had hopes that she would become herself again, and she was sent to a seaside home. Then she was sent to Dr. Francis Gilbert Scott, of Kingston Road, New water. Dr. Scott said the girl came to him from a consulting physician in London, who had diagnosed her condition as neurasthenia, which took the form of refusing all food. She was artificially fed, but her mental symptoms grew worse, and she was certified to be insane.

“It was reported to me that she had threatened to take poison,” said the coroner.

“She made a lot ol loose statements,” replied Dr. Scott. While she was with you did she attempt to destroy herself?—No. The last sad stage was described by Frank Raymond King, who said the girl was in a very depressed state when she was admitted to the asylum, and would scarcely speak at all. She looked very thin. She was not violent, but kept her teeth tightly closed and would not lake voluntarily. Death was cue to exhaustion from melancholia, accelerated by refusal to take food. A verdict in accordance with this testimony was returned.