A FATAL FRENZY.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9348, 18 January 1909, Page 7

A FATAL FRENZY.

SUICIDE BY SCHOOLGIRL. Paris, November 13. In The Awakening of Spring, Herr Prank Wedekind tells the tragedies of morbid German childhood, bat real life here has its counterparts. The snioide of a school girl of 18, who took strychnine, and died in the class-room, proves to bo an extraordinary story of unhealthy precocity. The child Lucienne had, at her early age, been put out to service by her parents in a small town in Normandy. There she fell violently in love With her master. The latter, in this strange predicament, found it impossible to keep her in his service, but, mindful of the oibid’s welfare, sent her to the house of a friend of his, a chemist, near Paris. She did not improve, however, and forget her absurd infatuation, but moped, and seemed in danger of falling melancholy mad. Her second employer

determined to send her back to school, which she should never have left. She was a boarder, spending only Sundays and holidays in the chemist’s house. School life produced no change for the better, and the unhappy child, while perfectly well-behaved:and giving no trouble, continued to brood. It is now remembered that she once or twice asked questions about certain poisons. but in apparently so innocent a manner that no suspicions were aroused. She must have managed to purloin some strychnine from the chemist’s poison chest one Sunday when it was left open, and have taken it with her to school. On the day of her death she showed nothing unusual in her manner, and, after breakfasting with her schoolfellows, went into the class-room at, half-past eight. She must have taken the poison on entering, for in a few moments sue was seen to be in great pain. The mistress asked her what was the matter. “I have taken strychnine. It is no use doing anything. lam going to die. There is a letter. . . . she gasped.

and fell dead on the schoolroom floor. The letter found stated in matter-of-fact terms that she had voluntarily taken her life because she was hopelessly in love with a man who did not love her. and whose name she gave. It was that of her former master in Normandy.