Richmond daily times. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1853, 1853-02-24
THE DAILY TIMES
AN AMATEUR SUICIDE,

make up my mind to the intolerable bore of exis-
tence. Getting up in the morning was nuisance
to me, and going to bed at night an act which [
performed with INDISPENSABLE reluctance. NV
means were limited, and | hated economy. Nv
admiration of beauty was intense, and failed to
inspire love. My ambition was great and |
could not get footing in politics. literature, or
any other worldly pursuit. My disposition was
indolent, and l was forced to work. My pride
was excessive and my position obscure. All these
facts conspired to put me out of temper with life,
and in love with death. was always wishing
myself dead. TO die became the great object of
my life. | finally resolved on suicide. Having
resolved on self destruction, the only question
that remained to be decided, was how to accom-
plish the operation. No doubt the thing was easy
enough in itself. There was drowning myself,
and blowing ones brains out with revolver,
and stabbing ones self with stietto, and hang
ing ones self with rope, besides jumping off
house-top, drinking laudanum and prussic acid,
and dozen other fashionable methods.
Nevertheless, l recoed from them all for
to speak candidly, l was very much afraid of
hurting myself in the process of killing. This
take to be the great reason why so many people
remain alive notwithstanding the obviously SUI
perior advantages of suicide. | say obvious ad-
vantages, for what is the use of going through
so many years of toll, care and sorrow, only to
die after all, when the object may be accom-
plished at once in the easiest possible manner.
Not that it is easy. as it seems. once tried to
drown myself, and was fished out of the river and
held up by the heels with my head downwards
by a philanthropst, who had but superficial
knowledge of pathology; after which, hot bricks.
We're applied to my feet, indeed so hot that the
skin was taken off their soles, and l ultimately
recovered to a very painful sense of conscious
ness. Again, friend of mine imperfectly shot
himself and lived in extreme agony for three
whole weeks. Numbers of men have jumped
from prodigious heights and yet escaped with
broken limbs and compound fractures. AS for
stabbing, it requires an immense amount of cou-
rage to strike sharp piece of cold steel any eff
fectual depth into ones flesh and laudanum
cases are one half of them failures; while it is no
easy matter to obtain prussc acid at all, and
connoner poisons are apt to produce commissions
and internal writings of a most unsatisfactory
nature. .l
I determined to avoid all these &c petites mi,
seres de la mort humaine," and die at home at
ease, just the gentlemen of England in the
way, live at home on the same principle. After
mature reflection, as suicide was science little
cultivated in America, l selected the foreign
mode, and adopted the plan by which French
lovers occasionally put an end to their troubles.
only regretted that the want of either wife or
mistress to share the ceremony compelled me to
take my departure from earth in an orthodox and
ooAit"iy hahhSls WOPOoCu " d puliOSOpulC
friend to accompany me; but he apologsed for
declining the invitation, as he had just insured
his life, and suicide would have initiated the poll
cy. He recommended me, however. to make
my will in his favor, and appoint him sole execu-
tor, which l promised to do; but which, as had
nothing to leave but debts, 1 on rehec ion consi-
dered superfuous exertion.
Accordingly | conveyed surreptitiousy a Ger
tain quantity of charcoal and an iron brazier into
he'd and haVInp rammad a holStar a
great coat, and hearth rug up the chimney to
prevent ventilation. carefully closed the win
dows, lighted fire in the brazier and went
to bed with somewhat nervous foreboding
of suffocation. In short time the fumes Of
the charcoal began to affect me, and was ra-
pidly becoming insensible, when sudden glare
of light reused me from my torpor to the dim
perception of the fact, that | was perishing
by means infinitely more fearful and less philo-
Sophical than, in my most death-desiring mo-
ments, had dreamed Of. My shirt, which /
had thrown over the back of chair, had, il
seemed, caught fire from the brazier, and the
flames had communicated already to a table CO.
vered with books and papers,. There was no
time to be lost. / rushed to the door, unbolted
it, and in few minutes found myself in the street
shivering with cold, and covered only with my
night-gown. Some neighbours took me in, and
as the house was burned to the ground, no sus-
pioion of my intention ever got wind. But this
failure taught me severe lesson, and resolved
to adopt a less hazardous method on the next oc.
casion. 20 --..---
Shortly afterwards, feeling Still the same dis
taste for, and WEAKNESS of life, hit upon plan
as remarkable as it was ingenious I procured
an alarm clock, and so arranged matters that at
fixed hour heavy weight should fall from
bracket on which it was carefully balanced, and
by its descent strangle me in my sleep, with
cord passed in slip knot round my neck. To
be thus unconsciously garroted, appeared to me
magnificent contrivance, for to die in state of
somniferousness was the great object of my
studies.
All was arranged. sat up two nights ca
rousing with some friends, to whom candidly
impaired my project, which they took to be an
excellent joke; and on the third evening lay
down utterly exhausted and fell asleep in few
minutes. l never expected to wake again on this
side of the Styx. Nevertheless, was aroused
by hideous nightmare. / dreamed that 1 was
in New Zealand, and that the head cook of a
chief of aboriginals was cutting off my nose with
a knife made of flint. l tried to rise, but was
held down by the fearful phantom of my dream,
and found, after while, that instead ofgarroting
me as had intended, the faithless rope had slip
ped over my nose, which the falling weight had,
by the effect of its terrible jerk, disfgured in a
probably permanent manner.
This disguised me with the clock work sys-
TEN of suicide, and at the same time gave me an
additional motive to self destruction, for of all
things Disagreement of the nasal feature is most
apt to put man out of conceit with himself and
the world. 1t took me full six months to get
over this experience and devise new method of
carrying out my fatal resolution.
Inext hit upon very original but also very
expensive idea, which nothing but lucky wind
fall, IN the shape of small legacy, would have
enabled me to execute. This was neither more
nor less than to ascend in balloon, inhae
chloroform, and at the moment of becoming in
sensible fire pistol into the balloon, and thus,
falling from height of perhaps two or three
miles, be dashed to pieces in state of insensibi-
lily. bought the balloon, assembled, inhaled