UNREQUITED LOVE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 164, 5 August 1909, Page 2

UNREQUITED LOVE.

THE PONSONBY TRAGEDY. A DRAMATIC INCIDENT. By Telegraph.—Press Association. Auckland, August 3. An inquest was conducted this afternoon on the body of Charles Barry McCarthy, who committed suicide in Mrs Wright's boarding-house, Ponsonbv, the previous day, by swallowing a poison. The circumstances of the suicide,

which were given yesterday, ,vere tnal deceased tame from England to ask .Miss Wright's hand in marriage, and, after being rejected, took prussic acid in her mother's house.

A dramatic incident which preceded this wish n/tt mis marraUM ;at )tlie | iiiijuest by Miss Evelyn M. Wright, who, [ when asked by the coroner if she could . add anything to the cvidencs given by tile other witnesses, said there was something she wished to say. She stated that after an interview with deceased, sue and her mother left the room. Deceased called her'back and asked her to come close to Jiim. She went up to him, and he caught her arm and presented a revolver, loaded in live chambers, to her left temple. She knocked the weapon up and it fell on the floor. She picked it up and unloaded it, and deceased snatched the cartridges from lier, but did not regain the weapon. She knew the mechanism of the revolver, which deceased had purchased in l'.ngland six or seven years ago. Deceased, when, dispossessed of theVeapon, fell on his knees before her and asked for forgiveness for attempting to take ner life. He asked her not to tell anyone, and that was why she had kept the incident secret. Deceased went out for a minute or two, and came back apparently calm. She met hi,,, at the door, and asked him to promise not to threaten |, ov mother with the revolver. lie said he was tjuito happy now and would go home (she look this ito mean England). She took him tea and notepaper, and said she would wait while lie wrote. He said, '■ Xo." He could not collect his thoughts, and asked her to leave the room. To the Coroner: "I was just in time to snatch the revolver he had cocked, ■lust a touch of the finger would have done it." To Sergeant Cretin: When he presented the revolver he said he would kill witness and her mother. To the Coroner: Deceased was about 14 years older than she was. and she regarded him more as a falluV than anything else. A note found on the table was handed to the police. It contained the words: " I gave six years of my life !or Kvelvn. ever >ii>cc I first knew her. flood-live all.

After medical evidence the jury returned a verdict of poisoning hv prussie acid, self-administered while in a state of mental unsoundness.