The Express.
London, England, 1847-10-27 00:00:00

on the floor. The porter came in. Looked for the iastru-
meat, and found the razor in the bleed. He was quite dead, I
nearly cold. This was at eleven o'clock. lam not aware
that it was one of the razors he was in the habit of using.
With the assistance of one of the porters I raised him and
put him into the bed in the position in which the body
now lie. ; the razor was farther from the wall than the body.
I saw him last alive upon Saturday, at eleven o'clock. lie
has been in low spirits for the last week, at least mince Mon-
day. He was not more desponding and low spirited on
Saturday than on the previous days': I don't know that I
can use the word deepoudioF ; I will say low spirits. He
appeared to be somewhat excited in his mind ; he was often
low spirited. I do not know any reason of his low spirits ;
I cannot tell that the late college election had any effect
upon him; he had a constitutional tendency to melancholy.
He was a delicate man, and worked very hard. I am not aware
that persons who pursue mathematical studies are subject to
melancholy. It was generally remarked in college that be
was gloomy the last week • he was subject to gloom. I
do not think the bed was teemed as if it had been lain in. Had
CeneerMtiOn with him, and he laboured under an impres-
sion that there were statements in circulation respecting
him : he thought there was some charge against him.
Dr. Stokes examined Deceased was one of my oldest and
dearest friends. I think I never had occasion to prescribe
fur him till last Monday ; he generally enjoyed better heulth
than m st men who lead a sedentary life ; he called upon me
in company with a friend; the friend said to me that he was
not very well ; that his breath was heavy, and he was de-
pressed. led not prescribe for him then. Upon Tuesday
meriiing, I received a note from him; he said he was not
well though not in pain, but was afraid that something in
his manner had excited the suspicion of his friends, and that
persons might suppose he was ill. He did not say mental
illness, but he wished it to be inferred. I told hint that he
was labouring under dyspepsia, derangement of the stomach.
He had a foulness of tongue, and heavy breath ; but he was
not feverish, though he looked like a man who might get
fever. Ile was melancholy. Ho said he had been working
very hard at a difficult mathematical problem. Upon
Monday I gave him a blue pill and a rhubarb draught
lie mentioned to me that he had been drinking green
tea, which evidently had deranged his stomach very
much. Ile was a man of strictly temperate habits. I saw
hint three times on Wednesday and Thursday. I told him
to give up his mathematical studies and go out. He ar-
ranged to go to a friend in the country. He was wonder-
fully better on Thursday, and still better on Friday, when he
prJmised to come end dine with me. What he chiefly com-
plained of was, lest, during has flints!. persons might have
conceived that his mind was not all right—" Even you,"
said he, " are looking at me." " Why," said I, " one can-
not look cheerful to see you ill." He did not dine with me
on Friday. He dined in the country, but he drove about
town with me on Friday. I saw him oa Saturday. He was
better, and his natural manner had returned. Ile was then
apparently much better, his tongue was cleaner. He steadily
improved since Wednesday. lie spent Saturday evening
with me at my own house. He was perfectly well to
all appearance. He showed no aberration of mind snore
than as to natural. despondency. Ile asked me would Igo
to the college chapel on Sunday. I slid," Yes." He said,
" Then you had better come and breakfast with me, and we
will go together." I did so. The only thing remarkable
was, that when I came he had breakfasted. lye had break-
fest prepared for me. His habit, he said, was to breakfast
upon getting up. There was nothing about him then to
draw the attention of any person who had known that he
WF.Siii. Ile acknowledged that he had been ill—that he had
been in a dreamy state; but he felt the illness was passing
or had passed away. As far as I could ascertain about his
depression, it was that his manner had excited suspicion that
he was not right in his mind, and that this would go out
and damage his character and prospects. I assured
him that his illness arose front physical causes, and that
his depression was merely the result of those causes. Ile
said that medical men might think as I did ; but that
others would misinterpret it into mental illness. There was
nothing extraordinary in his state ; the only thing unusual
in his case was that he had improved so much, and then re-
lapsed. I think that his former hallucination returned
stronger than it had been ; upon the Thursday he said to me
"My s.rvant thinks me very ill, and she watches me."
Upon one occasion he went to the door and shut ir, and said
that she was listening. I think his disease was melancholia,
arising from dyspepsia, which originated tram over applica-
tion of mind to a difficult mathematical problem, while he
neglected his bowels, and was drinking strong tea. 1 believe
him to have been a very religious man ; on Sunday morn-
ing I found him reading Butler's Sermons, which he said it
w his habit to read ;he asked me if I had ever r cad them; I
said I had not, and hesaid, tapping mean the shoulder, "My
dear friend, I could not recommeud you a better book." He
often seemed labouring under despondency ; but I never saw
him in such health and spirits as he was in since the College
Election. I heard that two years ago he had an ulcer on his
leg. Ido not think that the stoppage of that ulcer affected
his mind, because he was in excellent health. He stated in
his conversation that his object was to bring a still stronger
bearing between natural and revealed religion.
H. 'West, barrister-at-law, examined : I was a very parti-
cular friend of the deceased. On Saturday week last I came to
his rooms here. Some time previous he hod paid me a visit at
my father'shouw,Loughlinstown. I elute to him to fix a day
to come down. lie told me he had been working very hard, and
with great satisfaction. I remarked that his breath was
heavy, and his manner was not so joyous as it used to be
whoa meeting his friends. He appeared to be ill. lie
agreed to come with me. He walked along by Killiney
hill. I poiated out objects to him which he did not appear
to see. On Sunday ho went to church, and his manner was
very abstracted. In the evening we retired early to the
drawing-room, and he said, " You know I am no good until
I get my tee." Met him in town upon Monday. He said
to me, " Did it ever occur to you that persons bare some
particular formula to test if you have committed any
crime; you get red and they get red." I told him
that nothing of the kind could be. I thought, as he
used the word formula, his mind had been deranged
by scientific pursuits. He was wandering and incoherent,
like a person in a fever. I thought upon one or two
points that he was peculiarly minded ; that was when he had
dyspeptic symptoms. He placed great reliance i Dr. Stokes.
The peculiar views I speak of had reference to his college
studies. Went with him to Dr. Stokes, and I told him I did
not think he was well. Dr. Stokes told him not to study so
much. . _ .

Dr. Leeson examined : I found on the neck of deccued a
large gash, about six inches in length, and three in breadth,
cutting deeply; in fact, as far as the spine, through the
carotid artery and jugular vein at the right side. The wound
also opens into the mouth, just above the trachea. There
was one gash, but visibly three incisions. I think the wounds
were inflicted by a razor, which was found in the room clotted
with blood and hair. There cannot be the least question
that the wounds were the cause of death. I think, after he
had received the wound across the carotid and jugular Win!,
that his death was instantaneous.
. . .

The Coroner then said after the admirable testimony which
had been given by Dr. Stokes, there could not be any doubt
but that the deceased had committed the act while labouring
under melancholia, produced by dyspepsia. Every one would
deplore that the melancholy event had taken place. There
could be no doubt that persons who pursued mathematical
and abstruse studies were subject to melancholia; and cases
of insanity and melancholy resembled each other so much in
many instances, that no one could tell where one began and
the other terminated; and Dr. Stokes had known persons
commit suicide while affected with melancholia. That tieing
the case, it wax quite clear that the deceased had committed
the rash and most deplorable act arising from melancholia,
brought on by dyspepsia, which had been caused by an over-
worked mind. If the jury agreed in this opinion, he would
record it an their verdict.

The jury expressed a wish to retire, and draw up their
verdict in their own words, which they did accordingly.
They returned in a few minutes with the foVowing verdict:
" We find that Professor James M'Cullegh died of wounds
inflicted upon himself while labouring under temporary
insanity."—Dublin Everting Mail.

SCOTLAND.
EDINCIPIGH, OCT. 25.
The Edinburgh police surgeon and one of the in-
firmary physicians have both been seized with typhus.
Such is the overstocking of the medical profession,
and the eagerness for position, that the duties of the
latter office are performed gratuitously. Matters are
certainly come to a strange pass, when we find gen-
tlemen, at the end of an expensive and laborious edu-
cation, daily ministering in pest-houses, where the
chances of infection are a hundred to one, and all for
nothing. In the military profession, the risk would
not be much greater, while at the very least a drum-
bny's pay would be certain. If physicians were true
to themselves, such anomalies could not exist. How
fever is keeping in the provinces there is no exact
means of knowing, but, if it have not already done so,
there is every probability of its paying a visit to the
picturesque town of Jedburgh, so well known to
tourists by its gothic abbey. A correspondent of the
KrAn 31ai1 says:
There Is not a single sewer in any one of the streets to carry off the
erurfeer water, filth, and other impurities; and the nece?sary conse-
quence is that few houses hare water closets, and the contents of the
open &voids of the carets are mostnoxious; so much so, that as the
evening seta in, it is impossible for the inhabitant' in some of the
streets, to keep their windows open, for the effluvia. But this is not
the worst; at the back of the house., on each side of the streets, the in-
habitants have dung heaps. in which the filth, night soil, fir., are de-
posited, and remain there for nearly a whole year; Indeed the prac-
tice Is to clean these places only annually. As might be expected,
their condition is disgusting, and there are to be found many In-
stances in which the night roil, &e., may he seen oozing through the
lanes to the front of the houses, musing an intolerable nuisance to
the cleanly-disposed people.
As railway operations cease Highland labourers
ate returning home for want of employment, and as
the harvest is over, there is nothing in the shape of
;!--u -^, in their native dis-
rept, em..? iv.. •V• il/Clll •
trieta. The :surplus funds of the Highland board
will steel the general public against further appeals,
and undecided as to the exact method of disbursing
the money actually in hand, much individual suffer-
ing may be experienced while the board ponders and
parliament delay the enactment of a stringent poor
law. Except in the multiplicity of subjects calling
for legislative interference, government can have no
pretence in postponing a comprehensive Highland
poor law, since the Treasury officially declared that
the social state of the Celtic territories was so well
known as to supersede the necessity of appoint-
ing a parliamentary commission. But, however
the legislature may dispose of this question, there
are ordinary as well as special reasons why the
lowland or commercial part of Scotland, will. not