A SAD STORY.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2413, 10 December 1880, Page 2

A SAD STORY.

SECOND EDITION

A pitiful tale of privation is told in connection with a man named Thompson, who has been admitted to the Christchurch hospital, suffering from fhe combined effects of starvation and an attempt to end his sufferings by suicide. Thompson arrived at Lyttelton from Melbourne about the end of November, and travelled north looking for work. He appears to have left the North road somewhere near Glenmarlc, and wandered about the hills in that locality for three or four days, finding, as be says, no signs of habitation, and having nothing to eat during that time but a piece of a loaf he had with him and a wood-hen (weka) that he caught. Apparently despairing and hungry, he took a razor that he had in his swag, and inflicted a cut on the side of his throat, but did not sever the windpipe. This was seemingly a few days ago, and nothing can be learnt of Thompson’s subsequent actions until Thursday, when lie came across some men working for Messrs Tobin and Kennedy, roadmaking, about four miles beyond Mr Gibbs’ farm, on the Cabbage Tree Flat. Here he told what he had done, and was most kindly treated b} r the contractors, their trouble being to keep him from eating too ravenously. This man Thompson belongs, of course, to the class who, unable to find employment, are designated by fhe editor of the “Otago Daily Times’’ “loafers,” ‘‘idlers,” and “rapscallions.” Were he a habit and repute mangier of the English grammar he might possibl* be silting in a private sanctum writing down the unemployed.