The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1848-01-18 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

DEATH ACCELERATED BY AN ATTEMPT AT SELF-DESTRUCTIoN.—An inquest was held on Saturday, before the borough coroner, on view of the body of James Sheridan, aged 62, who lived in a cellar in Edgar-street. Deceased had been in declining health and low spirits for some time, and had in earlier life been a hard drinker. He and his wife had latterly been in receipt of a small sum weekly from the parish. On Thursday he was taken out of his bed, and placed on a chair near the fire, his wife sitting by him. Unobserved he got hold of a razor that lay on a table behind him, and inflicted a wound in his throat. His wife got hold of his hand, and took the razor from him. The wound bled but little and he did not appear to be worse, taking his usual nourishment. As he requested a doctor to be sent for, Mr. Callan, surgeon, of Marybone, was sent for, and promptly attending, stitched up the wound, applied a plaster, and ordered the patient a pint of Wine, of which he drank abut one-half diluted, but died the same evening. Mr. Callan (who had, as stated by the Poor infirm widow, paid every attention to the deceased, -and also greatly relieved herself,) gave it as his opinion that natural death in this case was accelerated by the wound deceased had inflicted upon himself. The jury returned a verdict accordingly, attributing the attempted suicide to the influence of " temporary insanity."  an rail of the bulwarks below, which was much r tho +hp falling boar, which instantly dropped into the dock and disappeared. Grappling-irons were procured, and he was got up in about ten minutes, quite dead, and with blood oozing from his ears. The coroner said the question simply was,—did the deceased die from disloca+' m of tion; head, or urownin  ne neck, from the fracture of the 4, or otherwise. The jury first re-irect that death was caused by the instantly killed by hitting iently definite, the coro )n that he s'  I immec  there was no evidence  deceased striking the rail. The jury, upim this, retired a post mortem examination. Mr. Tearne, assistant .rgeon to the Northern Hospital, to which the body had !en taken, had previously said he could not assign the use of death without a post mortem examination, which er deemed unnecessary, and an expense to the The coroner said it rarely happened that death intaneously from the greatest violence of an  accident. Some little life was gengcaiileft;;Zif,aftei: the deceased struck the ship, the smallest portion of life remained, which was afterwards extinguished by the water, the death (in law) was caused by the drowning. If a man were stabbed through the heart, and instantly fell over into the water, in which the remains of life were extinguished, that would be a case in which "death by drowning" should be returned. He himself should have no hesitation, were he on the jury, in finding a verdict which he trusted would be satisfactory. He should say the deceased was drowned.—The jury persisted in requiring a post mortem.—The coroner said he entirely dissented from their expressed opinion ; but he was glad, in one respect, that they had so maintained their position, as it would show that he had been wrongly accused when it was stated elsewhere that he had an undue influence on the jury of his court, which led to useless expense : the question lay, however, with them as to their verdict. He then directed the post mortem to be taken and adjourned the case to Monday (yesterday), when a verdict was returned that the deceased died from a fracture in the skull, caused by the fall.