npedrazzini/19thc_murder_suicide_news huggingface dataset:
The Halifax Comet. — 1893-06-17 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

FEMALE BLACKMAILER.  (By Tam Comirr's Special Commisaitmer.)  BOUT twelve months ago the senior partner in a firm of City wholesale manufacturers oommitted suicide by shooting himself at his residence in the Regent's Park district. As the tragedy presented no features of sr dal interest from a sensational point of_yrew it received scant attention at the hancgoof the reporters, but to the friends and acquaintances of the deceased it proved a mysterious puzzle. No man ever took his own life for less apparent cause. Mr. Jones, as I will call him, was one of the fortunate ones of the earth. As senior partner in an old-established and flourishing firm, he was far removed from anything like financial worry—an assurance emphasised by the fact that his will was proved at nearly £30,000. Re was not connected with any company or concern involving personal responsibility, or cause for anxiety. In short, it would have been difficult to find a man more the ideal of th ieraring, prosperous English citizen than Mr. Jones. He was a model husband, and a large family of married and unmarried children regarded him as all a father ought to be. His life had been, until the day of his death, the clockwork-regulated routine existence of his class. He went to his offioe every day by the same train, and if ever he failed to return punctually to dinner, his family knew, or believed they knew, where hip was and what detained him.  At the inquest the little evidence called threw no light upon the mystery. The widow had noticed that the deceased had been somewhat digrait and depressed for some months, but he had never complained nor uttered a word that could be construed into an explanation. The jury. brought in the usual verdict of temporary insanity, and but for an accident the light would never have been turned upon the darkness that surrounded the incident. In going over her late husband's papers, Mrs. Jones noticed that, in several instances, cheques drawn on the private account had not been pasted on to the counterfoils in the cheque-book. This was so much opposed to the rigidly methodical habit of the dead man that her attention was arrested. In all, about twenty cheques were missing. The pass-book was examined, with the result that the missing cheques were found to represent withdrawals to the total amount of about £6OO. There was dearly something extraordinary here. Mr. Jones had always been intolerant of anything approaching secrecy or underhandedness; therefore, if he had endeavoured to conceal traces of the payment of money, he must , have had very special reasons for so doing. ' Mrs. Jones called in the assistance of a gentleman friend, whom she deputed to spare no expense to clear up what promised to prove a clue to the perplexing question, why did he kill himself? The friend entered into the investigation with spirit. Inquiries at the bank produced little. The chequ a had apparently all been paid through the clearing-house in the usual way, with two exceptions. A cashier remembered a fashionably-dressed woman preseating One of Mr. Jones's  31, Jo Rs P' 4* 4 A
The Halifax Comet. — 1898-01-08 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

ONE ( HALF-PENNY  none. Truly there are cases where pity may find a proper exercise, but this is after the mind has been over-turned, possibly by nothing so much as by the consumption of the detestable columns which are the shame of those who print and purvey them.  If nothing but a bare account, setting out the shame, instead of the sensationalism, of what had occured were published, we should soon find that the scarcity of the old diet would reduce the number of poisoned minds which now keep up the supply of suicides.  -0 Thus runs the headTHE POLICE line of the interesting report of a case heard by THE PUBLIC* our West Riding Bench on Saturday wherein one, certainly not the, James Booth and John Crossley, were charged with having been disorderly at Barkisland on Christmas Eve. Singularly the charge was brought by a constable of the name of Dennison, •  AND  and thus the whole of the names are enough to make one suspect a relationship between the whole report and the festivities of Christmas! The officer gave a singularly graphic account of the proceedings, but three other credible witnesses of what should have been "the scene" declared that it never took places and the Bench, evidently under the charitable impression that the policeman had got his Chtistmas dinner a day too soon, announced that the weight of  evidence was against that officer and dismissed the case.  It should be noted that this was in the county. In the County Borough there would probably have been two or even three policemen, and the number of  THE NATIONAL BOOT DEPOT,  defendant's witnesses would, of course, require to be correspondingly increased. In Lite is aso of this kind, if we remember rightly, defendant was faced by three zealous prosecutors, and was thereupon informed by his wise and experienced solicitor that " we shall want eighteen witnesses, then." In the same case, again subject as above, after examining seventeen of these, even the Borough Bench came to the conclusion that were as likely to be truthful as were the stereotyped repetitions put in by the constables.  * * *  The whole business shows how important it is that :our constables should be well up in the technical differences which surround and mystify the various phases of inebriety. It is of far more importance, and useful in a far greater number of cases, than anything taught by the various Ambulance Societies, good as they are. We are not sure that either the County or the Borough police officers are furnished with any dictionary or encyclopcedia of the various and varying conditions'of the genus drinker, but they certainly should be, and entrance to the Force should be conditional upon a proficiency therein, proved in a rigorous examination. There would be then far fewer cases:of this painful difference of judgment between the Public, the Public's Friends, and the Police. We are sure it all arises from pure misunderstanding. Surely none of .them ever tell lies!  -0 The newspapers are exercising a lot of ingenuity in devising
The Halifax Comet. — 1898-01-08 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

ELLAND GAS COMPANY.—Shares Required. Buyer, J. Turner Spencer, Stockbroker, Halifax  * *  pel4:47aul awsq,e- 714auttit., a idea Az6tvheo, ider.sl4lozot4'o(*lj--- "Ale 1a44"-A  • .  to raise a fund of which ministers who came in the future would reap the benefit.  "He himself was married" although in a "single minister" circuit. In other words he was married "off the streagth."  The suicide mania in Halifax is alarming some people quite unnecessarily. It is of course very sad that so many people should take away their own lives, but on the other hand it must be remembered that those who do so are usually not particularly desirable members of a community. There will have to be a lot more suicides before the population of Halifax becomes perceptibly less, and all this time, if the mania continues, a process of weeding will be going on which will eventually lea N e all the respectable people living, whilst the good-for-nothings will all have found their way into the still waters of the "Cut."  Suicide is a crime which always secures popular sympathy nowadays, and that is certainly one reason why it is on the increase. Perhaps if we had gone back to the old-fashioned custom and buried a few of the earlier exponents at the junction of four cross roads, with a stake through each of their bodies, there would not have been so many aspirants to the honour of making the next.  For a person to be "conveyed home in a cab" indicates, in Halifax, very serious, nay, dangerous illness on the part of that person. Such at least is the impression gleaned by reading the local newspapers, which, when they wish to impress on their readers the serious nature of anyone's sudden illness or accident, invariably write that he or she "had to be conveyed home in a cab." The fact is that in the minds of a local newspaper scribe, and I believe of a large portion of the Public as well, the word " cab " is synonymous with "ambulance."  A correspondent has been reading some poetry in Good Words, the first verse of which runs, he says, somewhat as follows : " The far hills! The green sky! My heart fills, I sigh, sigh."  He wants to know if I can tell him whether my friend, the poetical idiot, is the author of these lines. I cannot think he has quite come to this, though he has written some awful nonsense in his time. "Green sky "is decidedly fresh. Is it a
The Halifax Comet. — 1898-05-21 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

NORTHGATE, HALIFAX.  1161--- that the excursion should be run by the Midland Railway. If it isn't likely. If the Etening Courier can tell a joke when it sees one. Why it should sneer at the Duke of York's story about the Caledonian Asylum. If the Courier laughs at its own jokes. Whether people laugh most at the jokes (?) or at the paper which thinks they are funny enough to deserve a shilling. Why the Courier people don't buy a supply of jokes from the COMET and thus save middlemen's profits.  Why the Courier pays people a shilling each for COMET clippings when they could buy them direct at a reduction for taking a quantity. If the readers of a section of the local Press have tired of reading highlycoloured descriptive articles on suicides. If this accounts for the more sensible reports that are taking the place of outrageous fictions. The chapel trustees who are trying to raise the wind by land speculation. If this isn't better than having a bazaar or a special collection. What sort of a mess the Parks Committee have got into over the right of way squabble on the Greenroyd estate, If the refusal of the Committee to allow a street across the edge of the Moor has been followed by a permission to make a cart road right along the grass to the junction of the Moor side with Skircoat road. If not, how it is that the grass has been ploughed up by cart-wheels making it impassable to pedestrians. NoTE.—These queries may be anonymous if otherwise unobjectioroable. An attempt is made to remedy defects in mere wording, but no unfair use of this column is permitted. The publication of a question does not imply our agreement with its contents. Address to THE HALIFAX COMET, 15, Waterhouse Street
The Halifax Comet. — 1898-10-01 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

ONE I HALF-PENNY  suicide, and Sensationalism is as the breath of life to the Courier. gut as our cartoon indicates, even the Ontrier's eyes are slowly opening to its own peculiarities. —0  The five lads who were A SEN SELF SS charged the other day at the Borough Court, with wilfully uprooting an oak tree in Shroggs Park, should congratulate themselves upon their luck in being born in such an enlightened age. For damaging the tree, said to be nearly a hundred years old, to the extent of £5, the young rascals were nominally mulcted in penalties rang i g between nine shillings and sixteen and sixpence. We say nominally because it is quite clear that the fine is drawn, not from the offenders themselves, but from their parents. The fine is all right, so far as it goes, in such cases, because it rightly punishes the parents for their failure to do their duty to their offspring; but to let the actual offenders go absolutely free as was done in this case, is a proceeding for which no justification can be founci. What the magistrates ought to use is the birch-rod; no other punishment in their power to inflict is of any use whatever. It may seem brutal but it is the only remedy. Since school boards, Sunday schools, and worse than all, parents, fail to instil into the juvenile mind of the present day a sense of what is right and what is wrong, how else is the rising generation to be prevented from being one of criminals?  Mr. Scarborough, who was on the bench when the Shroggs Park case was heard, said that lads five hundred years ago would not have done such a thing. As to that we cannot speak with authority, our knowledge of that period of English history being limited to what we gathered from our school books, and we do not remember any reference therein to the habits of juveniles in respect to the uprooting of oak trees in public parks. Still, we accept Mr. Scarborough's word that such a thing would not have happened. What
The Halifax Comet. — 1898-09-17 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

THE EDITOR OF "THE HALIFAX COMET."  Sir,—Kindly permit me, through your columns, to draw the attention of the Public to what I consider the remarkable proceedings of the Coroner's Court at an inquest held last week at Stump Cross. As most of your readers are doubtless acquainted with the facts of the case I will not weary them with a long explanation. Briefly : The woman was seen falling from a window on to the street, when picked up she was alive; a doctor was summoned who saw and examined her; an inquest was held and several witnesses summoned to give evidence before the Deputy Coroner and the jury. The evidence plainly pointed to suicide, but what evidence had the jury for coming to the decision that Deco sed died Lunt fracture of the skull ? " I most emphatically declare they had no evidence to warrant them in coming to this conclusion. The only mention made of the deceased's injuries was by the woman who laid out the body, who said that the doctor said.. deceased's skull was fractured ; I believe she did not even say that she heard the doctor saying this. Perhaps I may be wrong, but I firmly believe this is not evidence; it is only what she heard the people say, and therefore should not have been received as evidence, much less as the basis on which to form a true verdict of the cause of death. Would it not have been more satisfactory to all concerned, and especially to the sworn jurymen, if the Deputy Coroner had summoned the doctor, who would have been able to give them his opinion of the caus of death directly, and not after it had been carried about from one old woman to another.  The only reason I can see for the Deputy Coroner omitting to summon the doctor is that through some mistaken sense of economy he wants to keep down expenses, as he would have had to pay the doctor for attending and giving evidence.  If the Deputy Coroner really is such a strict economist, why does he not carry his economy a little further and abolish
The Halifax Comet. — 1898-04-16 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

III.  would come as a boom and a blizzard to an invading enemy, and might be despatched out to China in quantities, labelled air-guns, for something of the kind will be wanted shortly, if the Russian bear is allowed to go on shewing off his airs, blow him!  A society has been formed at Antofagasta "to raise woman to the position she deserves and which God gave her at the Creation." The rules include: "All conversation or discus-ion in the society's hall on politics, religion or lineage is strictly prohibited, and the title of equality, which is the motto of our society, shall be enforced iu every way.'' Members "shall be scrupulously clean when they attend the meetings, wearing dresses of elegant simplicity, of small cost and suitable to the age of the wearer; but this is no obstacle to the beauty of fit which will augment the beauty of the younger members.—( hilian Times. (Valparaiso).   For the second time Joseph, the great chef, has forsaken Paris. The former occasion was when he was lured to America by a millionaire absurdly named Vanderbilt. This Vanderbilt lived in a marble palace, filled with ebony furniture, carved by Michael Angelo; the staircases were gold-plated, and all the door-knobs were studded with diamonds; and Vanderbilt dined off gold plate every day. it will thus be seen that this millionaire thought nothing too good for him, and so, although he did not care much for the pleasures of dining himself, wanted the best. One day he sent for Joseph, and told him frankly that he was growing rather tired' of his high falutin' " artistic " French dishes. 'The fact is," said the millionaire, " I'm darned hungry, and I want a square, old-fashioned meal. Go and cook me," be added, " some nice boiled beef and cabbage." " Monsieur," replied Joseph, in his sauvest manner, "I think you have sent for me by mistake. Shall I ring for the gardener? "—Daily Mail.  A curious official notice of a suicide who had drowned himself in the Rhine is to be found in a Dutch paper. After offering a reward for the recovery of the body, the police give the following description :--'‘ Age about forty. Height, 51t. Hill. Speaks the dialect of Gelderland." We presume that dialcct is one of the dead languages.--The Globe.  The Chinese, who punished their wargod after his failure to protect them against the Japanese, have decided to give him an4her trial, lie has been reinstated in his old rank, which corresponds with that of Buddha.—Literary Digest (New York).  014 0 92 ir CO • no ••••• .1:3 teB 4 P.114g 0 0 co
The Halifax Comet. — 1898-07-09 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

TRAMS. by everybody, have displaced the Courier suicides and the Guardian interviews in the popular imagination. Everybody talks of them and apparently everybody rides on them. The Borough Collector no doubt is rapidly arriving at the latter conclusion, for the receipts are eminently satisfactory. They may be due, as one member of the Tramways Committee suggests, to what he styles" Curiosity Traffic," but the money is just as good, and we can only hope that the curiosity traffic may so blend with business traffio, pleasure traffic, convenience traffic, and all other traffic as to make the existing receipts permanent. If so, the people will themselves reduce the rates without the aid of the Council, if the Council ever gives much aid in that direction. If the traffics of last Saturday could be maintained the Tram Receipts will run to about 08,000 a year, which on an undertaking costing only about double that sum is not bad, even when all working expenses are deducted from the result. It certainly looks as if the croakers who tried to make the Council believe that the town didn't want Trams and that they couldn't be run in Halifax, were a bit off the mark.  vice and was rather stoutly opposed by half of them, the result being reached in favour of this Sunday's running by the Chairman's casting vote—though as he had not previously voted, there was virtually a majority without the casting vote— after protests by the Sabbatarians that the Sunday Trams were only voted by the Council to serve the convenience, not the curiosity or pleasure of the people. As we always expected, the people showed on Sunday whether they want Sunday Trams or not, and the dolts who pretended that it was useless to provide cars unless they . --_ asked for have got an object-lesson which we trust they will long remember.  Our Verbal Cartoon.—CCXXl A
The Halifax Comet. — 1894-12-29 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

SPECIAL.  NI mild have shrunk from emerging out of the shadow in which a doctor's telegram had lost him a year before. But to him dying was as natural as being born. He had not let them know he had recovered, just to be able to give them the joy of this surprise. His brother met him on the threshold of his home. He was going in, as in the old days • and his right was at once challenged. "Have you business in this house, friend ! " " Friend ! " That soothed him, but the words were cut, and he found it hard to make an excuse.  "I wish to see your mother." "Come in, then. Down, Towser. Don't mind the dog; he's old and harmless ; " this apologetically, for the dog was whining and demonstrative. The dead man saw that it was so with joy. He could not be so very dead, then—Towser recognised him, and was glad. But the mother did not. He made a pretence of buying some building plots, but both mother and brother resented the idea that their lands were for sale to any stranger who might come by. "They belonged to my son Hardy, who is dead ; I shall not sell them," the mother said, without any emotion in her voice, and they did not ask him to sit down, and attributed the uneasiness of the deaf and purblind dog to another cause—suspicion. So he left them and walked away, and they had to lock up the dog to prevent him from following the suspicious stranger. Late that night Hardy Lawrence returned to his room in the village tavern, and looked at himself in the glass. "How does a man look who is dead? " he asked cheerfully, and gave himself a careful scrutiny. The next morning he did not rise, and when they inquired after him he was really dead, having slept the sleep that knows no waking, and it made no little gossip and comment, because it was not even a case of suicide, so far as anybody could find out. They buried him as strangers are buried, with scant ceremony, but in a bit of earth that his own • money paid for, when his effects were sold. When the old man who was rounding off the turf finished his work a woman, young and timid, stepped up and slipped some money into his hand. "To keep his grave green," the said, and was gone. Being dead he could never know it, but perhaps it was just as well.  There is nothing so good for the inside of a man as the outside of a horse.
The Halifax Comet. — 1894-11-10 (Halifax, West Yorkshire, England)

EXUBERANT ENERGY.  THAT exuberant energy, if not under the control of great cautiousness, will prematurely wear out the body, is a fact, the importance of which in the • present age cannot be too strongly urged. In order to have it perpetually before our mind's eye, we ought to have it written down on a slip of paper and affixed to seine part of our watch. This extraordinary energy of soul is not infrequently the precursor of unrest, and unrest is like the worm which dieth not.  Worry too, it akin to these. Nothing ages a man so much as that. In the generality of cases it is not overwork, but worry that kills. It is a truism familiar to everybody that work naturally performed hurts nobody. Dr. Mortimer Granville and others have gone so far as to assert that no amount of such work will_hurt. What was it but worry or overwork—which ? —that killed Dickens, Scott, Byron; caused the suicides of Castlereigh and Hugh Miller? Few ordinary people care to be worried. . .  Indeed it is aln-iosist impossible to put about people of a lethargic temperament, as they are not usually susceptible to those influences which produce excitation. I have ere now entertained the' daring notion that to worry or excite fat, lazy, unimpressionable people if that were possible—would not only not harm, but benefit those individuals, because the operation would tend to reduce much of their adipose fat, and thus render them less inactive. In the case of men possessed of superabundant energy, I should say that one of the best possible antidotes against it is occasional indulgence in that weed whose praises have been so eloquently sung by such distinguished men as Thackeray, Lord Lytton, Rev. Charles Kingsley, and Captain Marryatt. The world has produced plenty of heroes who have displayed more " soul " than wisdom. Although we cannot withhold admiration of heroes, yet we may sometimes doubt the wisdom of their proceedings. An intelligent observer can always tell when the body has been equally cultivated with the mind, by the honest marks ivhich distinguish them from ordinary persons— marks that tell more graphically than could wot ds of what has been endured and overcome.