A Fatal Iufatuation.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 420, 16 November 1889, Page 6

A Fatal lufatuation.

A KO.M antic courtship and suicide has created much excitement at Northenden, near Manchester. A south, nineteen years of age, named Albeit Edward Ball, had been keeping company with a widow named Warburton, aged thiity-eight, with a family of eight children. On Monday night Ball stayed at Mrs War burton's house, and on Tuesday her daughter found him lying dead in her mother's greenhouse. Upon a plate near the body were two partly eaten lemons, in the pulp of "which oxalic acid had been placbd. The following letters were found among others :— ' Dear father, — A few last lines from your son. It is a very funny state that I write this. I have intended to keep my promise to her ; as I vowed I never would leave her, which I have stuck to till the last. You appear lo be s>o bitter against her and you no need, as I am well assured she would have made me happy. But you seem so determined, as you told her this morning, that before I could marry her you would die for me, and that is the reason I have done this crime. She only gives me one, which is that you may be (this sentence is not completed). You will find us both at my intended home, and so bury me with her if she is true till the last. Tell my mother lam sorry it has come to this, and hope better you have been, and tell her that I can say you had never no need of being so hard. May God bless my mother and you. Please give my love to all my brothers and sisters, and tell them that I never thought I was doing wrong. Write and tell Charley (a brother of deceased's in America) that I am dead. So may God bless you all, and 1 bid you all good-bye, as by the time you get this letter I am dead.— From your dead son, Albert." Another communication reads :—": — " Father, — I v/ould not; do what I have been advised, not if I died bit by bit ; I should consider myself worse than a murdeier;' and on the same sheet he writes : * Dear Willie,— A last few lines from your dear friend, Albert, and from your dear mother.' On the other side of this sheet of paper is the following, without indication as to whom it is addressed : — ' Kindly let me know how old a male person has to be before he can ge<- married without the interference of his parents, in a case where it is almost compulsion to do the same, as I am not sure whether it would have to be eighteen or twenty-one years,' and by doing so oblige A. E. Ball.

"Duced unpleasant typographical error in those invitations to the wedding," said young Bridegroom. " How so,'* anxiously inquired the bride. "Why, instead of • Your presence is requested,' the confounded printer made jfc read • Your presents are requested.' " The following is from " Punch " (revised): — When is a Police Magistrate like a wellbowled ball at the Oval ? — When he takes bail. The time to buy another umbrella — Just after you have lent one. Uood mannets cover defects for a time. Firekindlers occasionally kindle too much fire.