FELO-DE-SE.

Waikato Times, Volume XXVII, Issue 2218, 25 September 1886, Page 2 (Supplement)

FELO-DE-SE.

Although suicides are no longer buried at midnight at a cross-road, with a stake driven through their hearts, the manner of interment still varies from the ordinary method. In the case of the man, James Hawke, who recently murdered three persons at Penzance, and subsequently took his own life, the body of the murderer and suicide was buried without any ceremony whatever, and dressed in the clothes he was wearing when he killed himself. It is rather a remarkable coincidence that some workmen who were engaged a few weeks ago in digging a cutting at the junction of Cannon-street road and Cable-street, St, Geors|e's-in-the-East, came upon the skeleton of a mau with a stake driven through his body in the orthodox manner. This barbarous custom regained in force until the year 1823, and the skeletou just found is supposed to be that of a man who in 1811 murdered no less than six persons in the neighbourhood of Ratcliff-hiehway, and New Gravel-lane, and afterwards committed suicide whilst under remand in prison. There is a htrong presumption that every person who commits suicide is more or less of unsound miud, and it may be questionable whether the law should draw any distinction after death ; but w here the suicide is also a murderer public sentiment—rightly or wrongly —is still strong in favour of a difference being made in the rites of buii.il.