SCENE AT A SUICIDE'S BURIAL.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2046, 20 July 1885, Page 2

SCENE AT A SUICIDE'S BURIAL.

The village of-Delph, near Saddle worth, was greatly excited one Sunday evening recently, whon a young Austrian named AdolpJi Skrohofsky, who was fprejgn correspondent of Messrs Shaw and Co., committed suicido by taking prusslc aoid. At the inquest which followed, the evidence was of suol) a character that the jury returned a verdict of felo de se, In accordance with the coroner's warrant, Superintendent Stott, the head of the Saddlesworth police force, had to take charge of tho body, and see that it was interred without religious rite or ceremony. The funeraltook place on the following Thursday at the Delph Independent chapel, when a most unusual scene ocourred. Though every, effort was made to keep. the time of the interment a secret, hundreds of people were present. After tho body had been lowered into the grave, an attempt was made to sing a hymn, when the police interfered and ordered the company to disperse. This order, however, would have been of no avail but for Mr Richard Denton, an undo of the deceased, who asked the assemblage not to creato a scene. Tho company then reluctantly retired outside the grave yard and sang a hymn there. On the Sunday evening after the occurrence affairs reached a culminating point, Nearly 2000 persons assembled in thechapelyard, and sang several hymns a protest against a law which was described as but a remnant of a barbaric age. The leading members of all the choirs in the district were present to assist ill the singing. Over the grave had been plaeed a siiiall headstone with the name of the deceased upon it, and j;he well-known quotation from To.m Hood's Bridge of Sighs" "Alas for the rarity of Christianoharity." After the singing, the service at the chapel Was very largely attended, fihe place being crowded to the doors. The preacher, the Rev J. Campbell, iri alluding to the event which hat} brought tjieh) together, expressed a hope that reproseptatiqns would bo made to the Home Secretary with the view of getting such a barbaric law repealed.