ACCIDENTS, OFFENCES, ETC.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1234, 2 September 1884, Page 2

ACCIDENTS, OFFENCES, ETC.

Au unmarried woman named Bridget Healey, about 35 years of age, attempted to commit suicide in Tiraaru last Sunday nifHit by swallowing a .large quantity of very strong liquid ammonia. bh.e was taken to the hospital and the stomach pump used, but she now lies in a very dangerous state. No reason can be assigned for the act, and the conclusion arrived at is that she was temporarily insane. . Robert McLachlan, a railway engine-., driver, cut bis throat at Napier on Saturday morning. The wound was not fatal. The neighbors were alarmed by the family, and sent for medical assistance. Three doctors arrived at the scene, and sewed the man’s Ibrnai up. He was conveyed to the hospital, where he lies in a precarious condition. In his pocket a paper was found, on which was written an appeal to the benevolent to care for his children, and stating that he was driven

to commit the deed by his life being rendered miserable by the conduct of his It has transpired with regard to the cases of jumping from Seacliffe Asylum windows (Otago), that one case, at least, pf a rather serious nature has occurred. It was the same patient who formerly at Hume’s Private Asylum tried to cut another’s throat. He appears to have been left unattended in an upper room at Seacliffe, to which he had been transferred, and forced open the shutter in some way and jumped from the window, a distance of 30ft. Fortunately be fell on soft clay, and sustained no permanent inju y, though he was laid up for some time. Owing to the unfinished state of the building, the patient named Marisco, from Invercargill, got out of a window on the ground floor and hid in a cellar for some hours.