TERRIBLE SUICIDE AT WASHINGTON.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXX, Issue 4429, 31 May 1875, Page 3

TERRIBLE SUICIDE AT WASHINGTON.

The correspondent of the New TorTc World states that while Congress was in session on the afternoon of the 17 th February, and the galleries and corridors were unusually crowded with people, an unknown man committed suicide in such a frightful way as to send a thrill of horror through every person in the vast building. It was a bold and swift leap into instant death, and to those who were without the eastern frontof the Capitol, orstanding at the windows of the House hall looking up through the bright sunshine of a winter day, it appeared as if some huge indiarubber ball had been pitched from the top of the dome, and had gone bounding and rolling down over the carved iron ridges of its surface, clearing the second colonnaded gallery in its descent, and falling 190 ft. below to the very edge of Hie apex of the roof of the eastern front, where it was recognised as the limp and mangled form of a lifeless man. There it lay for hours in full view from the outer galleries of the dome and the upper windows of the House, waiting the arrival of the coroner. After an inquest was hold, and it was found to be the suicide, by jumping from the top of the dome, of a poor laboring man, driven to desperation through possible poverty, the body was lowered by ropes from the roof of the main building to the ground. Where his head struck the copper roof was indented several inches. It was impossible to encoffin the body on the roof and get it down through the crooked stairways of tbe dome. A largo crowd of people viewed the remains during the afternoon and witnessed their removal, The face was unrecognisable, and every bone in the body above the knees appeared to have been broken into splinters. The name of the suicide is Thomas McMahon,

a young mechanic, who resided in the northern part of Washington. He left his home in the morning, evidently depressed for want of work, and went to a pawn-shop, where he pawned a vest for 75 cents. Thence he went to the Capitol, and asked for food and money, but was warned by a policeman not to beg in the buildin"-. He then ascended the dome and descended to his death.”