Democratic Sentinel, Volume 2, Number 42, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 November 1878 — Singular Suicides. [ARTICLE]

Singular Suicides.

In the year 1500, William Dorrington threw himself from the parapet of the Church of St. Sepulcher, in London, leaving behind him a note, stating as his reason “ that he wanted to go to the opera that night, but had not money enough to purchase a ticket of admission.” A farmer in Allendale, Eng., got a gun-barrel, loaded it, and placed the stock end in a hot lire, and leaned his stomach against the other. The barrel soon became hot and exploded, killing; the unfortunate wretch instantly. A blacksmith in New Orleans, in 1841, killed himself in the same manner, blowing his bellows until the lire was hot enough to explode the gunbarrel. A young lady at a boarding-school in England drowned herself in a rain cask because she was made to study from an old book. She was “ sweet 1(5! ” A Greenwich (Eng.) pensioner, who was put upon short allowance for misconduct, in 184(5, sharpened the ends of his spectacles, and with them stabbed himself to the heart. In a French newspaper of 18(52 we find an account of a man who, his wife having proved unfaithful to him, called his valet and informed him that he was about to kill himself, and requested that he would boil him down and make a candle of his fat and carry it to his mistress, handing her at the same time the following note: Dearest Therese : I have long burned for you, and I now prove to you that my flames are real. Yours, Pierre. A young lady 10 yaars of age, having gambled away a large fortune, hung herself at Bath, Eng., with a gold and silver girdle. The following note was found in her hand: “ Thus I tie myself up from play.” This was worthy of a French woman.