The Sun.
London, England, 1864-06-28 00:00:00

THAMES.

GROSS OUTRAGE—Mathew Campbell, a ballast getter, in
the employ of the Trinity House Corporation, was brought
before Mr Partridge, charged with assaulting Mrs Under-
wood, the landlady of the White Bear public-house, Hat-
cliff. cross.

The prisoner, a rough blackguard, had been in the orao-
tics of going into the White Bear, making disturbances
there, and drinking beer which he did not pay for. On
Saturday week the prisoner and another man succeeded in
passing a counterfeit half crown on Mrs Underwood.
Yesterday evening the prisoner and another man entered the
White Bear and called for a pot of porter. The prisoner's
companion put down a shilling and took it up again. The
beer was drunk by the two fellows and not paid for. The
prisoner made a disturbance and grossly insulted Mrs
Underwood. He then had the impudence to go behind
the counter and draw some beer from the engine into a
pewter pot, and on Mrs Underwood remonstrating with
him he threw the beer he had drawn over her and ran out
of the house. A policeman was called, and he soon found
the prisoner.

Mr Partridge said the prisoner had committed a gross
and oowardly outrage on a respectable woman, and fined
him 40s.

The penalty was paid,

Extraordinary Suicide Mania in Cheltenham,

The extraordinary mania for committing suicide,
which has prevailed in Cheltenham for some weeks
was last illustrated o❑ Thursday by a young man
named Charles Taylor, 19 years of age, on whose
body an inquest was held on Saturday. From the
evidence it appears that on the former day he called
several times at the residence of a young woman
named Elizabeth Hobbs, to whom ho had for some
years been paying his addresses, and seemed an-
noyed to find she was at the Circus with some
friends. He called again in the evening, rather the
worse for liquor, and found her in; but he con
ducted himself in such a rough manner that she
had to request him to leave, which he refused to
do. Subsequently, while she was in the act of
drinking some water, he tipped up the glass, and
spilled the water over her, which so enraged her
that she threw the residue over him, and slapped
his face. After a time he went into the backyard,
and as he did not return she went in search of him,
and found him in a sitting position on the ground,
his neck resting on a cord clothes line which hung
across the yard. She lifted the cord from under
his chin, and with the other hand raised hie
head, and placed him backwards upon a box close
by. She spoke to him, but he made no answer.
His eyes rolled about for a moment, and then all
appeared over. It was conjectured that he might
have fallen with his neck on the line while in a
fit, or in consequence of being intoxicated, and

thus been suffocated; but the medical testimony
showed that it was quite possib:e for him to
have designedly deprived himself of life by
pressing his neck on the line, and taking
this in connection with several threats he
had uttered during the evening, the coroner
summed up in favour of fel° de se. The jury, how-
ever, returned a verdict of'' Suicide while in a state
of temporary insanity.' While the jury were de-
liberating some consternation was caused by a re-
port that a young man named Elliott, a companion
of the deceased, had stabbed himself in the
breast, and was dying. On this coming to
the coroner's ears in the jury room he remarked,
"I shall not be surprised if half Cheltenham com-
mits suicide, particularly while juries returns ver-
dicts which the evidence does not support." It is
right, however, to state that Elliott was seized with
a fit, and that a wound on his breast, which he
strenuously refuses to account for, had been opened
in the fall. The whole affair has produced consi-
derable consternation in Cheltenham, this being the
eighth case of suicide which has occurred there
within the past seven weeks.