LOVE AND SUICIDE.

Temuka Leader, Issue 2467, 21 February 1893, Page 4

LOVE AND SUICIDE.

An extraordinary tragedy occurred at Newton on Wednesday morning, when a bailiff named Robert Hastings, fifty-two years of age, committed suicide by shooting himself with a revolver, and a woman, named Clara Rooley, attempted to take her own life by taking poison. Both were married, and, according to the statement of the survivor, they conceived a mutual affection for one another ; but finding it impossible to live together they resolved to die together. They spent the previous night in Hastings’ office at Ring street, Newton, and made up their minds to take their own fives. Hastings shot himself and died instantaneously. The woman took chlorodyue, but seems almost immediately after to have repented, for she made her way to the police station and reported what had happened. The police promptly took her to the Prince Alfred Hospital, where vigorous remedies were applied, and it is almost certain that she will recover. In Hastings’ office the police found two notes, one written by him and the other by Mrs Rooley. Hastings’ note read as follows; —“I am about to bid all farewell. We have agreed to die for love. Do not blame us, it is better so. As we cannot have each other in life we naturally die together.” liooley’s memo, was much more brief. It reads “ Good-bye all, I am dying with the one I love of my own free will.” At the inquest on the body of Hastings, his wife, who was examined, said she knew that deceased was intimate with Mrs Rooley, and divorce proceedings were pending. Her husband had never threatened to take his life. The jury returned a verdict of suicide, and censured Mrs Rooley for not acquainting the police earlier with what had occurred.