SHUCKING SUICIDE. A DELIBERATE ACT. Thames, Dec. 27.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 329, 29 December 1888, Page 5

SHUCKING SUICIDE. A DELIBERATE ACT. Thames, Dec. 27.

A most distressing suicide occurred at Waiomo on Saturday last. An old miner named Philip Bevan, who was about 70 years of age, deliberately blew himself inpieces with dynamite. The first news of the tragedy reached the police on Monday evening, and Constable Bern was at once despatched to Waiomo to make inquiries j into the matter, as nothing was then known definitely, as the body had not been tound. The following letter was discovered in Bevan's whare :— " Waiomo, December 22. —I have this day taken my life by placing a mustard Xt\i of dynamite under my head and letting* it off in the usual way, namely, with detonator and fuse. My reason for writing this is that if my remains were found, no man shall be blamed for my death. — Philip Be van." A party was immediately organised, and a search made for the missing man, with the result that his remains were found by Constable Bern and a man named Plummer in the gully. Only the trunk of the body remained, the head and neck being completely shattered and blown away by the violence of the explosion, as the mustard tin contains three charges of dynamite. The scene of the tragedy presented a sickening spectacle, fragments of brain and neck being scattered about on shrubs and trees in the vicinity. The remains were brought into Grahamstown, and an inquest held on Wednesday, when a verdict to the effect that deceased committed suicide was returned. It appears that Bevan has been tributing for some time past at W^aiomo, and shortly before Christmas commenced crushing, during the progress of which he visited Thames, and in response to a query as to how he thought it would turn out, he replied, "Oh, I don't know ; if ifc doesn't turn out all right I will blow my brains out .with dynamite." A few days later the crushing was finished, but the gold was small, and not by any means up to expectations, and hence the cause of the rash aefc. Bevan, has been' very unsuccessful for a considerable time past, and consequently in very low spirits.