npedrazzini/19thc_murder_suicide_news huggingface dataset:
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-10-28 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

TRAGEDY IN SCOTLAND.  A terrible tragedy occurred at Montrose on Sunday morning. The following particulars have been given :  As the people were leaving the churches an infuriated man was observed rushing along the streets brandishing an axe. He made for the Suspensionbridge, and ascending the parapet, leaped into the Bak below, a height of 60ft. Boats were put off to his assistance and he was soon rescued, still clinging to the axe. On being drawn aboard the boat he said he had killed two devils, but had five yet to kill. He was immediately lodged in the police office. The incident created great excitement, which increased when it was learnt that the man, who was indentified as James White, &eller, had actually committed two murders. At one o'clock, without any provocation, he struck down his wife with the axe, killing her instantaneously. He then ran to the house of his mother-in-law, and, having struck her repeatedly with the same instrument, fled to the Suspension. bridge to commit suicide. The mother-in-law was so dreadfully mangled that her death was momentarily expected.  White, who is 50, has been peculiar in his manner for some time. as took part in the American civil war, arid was for a time a member of the Metropolitan Police Force. His wife was only Iki •' she leaves Six children. Her mother was 70 years of age.  very refined in its tastes, and yet might be full of dissoluteness and evil, and unless there was some higher power to keep them straight morally freed,n w ut.l never be secured, and moral good conduct would never prevail. His Grace then strongly advocated temperance and thrift, and spoke in condemnatory terms of the vice of gambling. Concluding, be said that the doctrine of Christianity was the highest civiliser, and urged the working men to accept the doctrines of Christ.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-10-14 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

DETERMINED SIIICIDE.—Dr. Danford Thomas has held an inquest at the St. Pancras Coroner's court, London, touching the death of Henry Joseph Barnes, 36 years old, a master whitesmith. The deceased, it appeared, had been in a low, desponding condition since 'February last, when he was attended by Dr. Thompson, of Oakley-square, who then advised his removal to a lunatic asylum, but his friends were not willing to place him under restraint. Subsequently he somewhat recovered, and went regularly to his work, but, although in very comfortable circumstances, he laboured under the delusion that he was a ruined man, and became very dejected in ,consequence. On Thursday evening in last week he escorted his wife to a theatre, and then went to the house of his father and a brother-in•law named Shepherd, a Volunteer rifleman. Shepherd kept his rifle at home, but fearing that the deceased, who he knew had attempted to buy a revolver, might shoot himself if he got possession of the gun, hid it in his bedroom 4nd coil= cpaled two cutridges in a cupboard. After playing with his nephew in the kitchen, the deceased entered the parlour occupied by Shepherd, who was absent, and then his bedroom, where he found the rifle. He also discovered the cartridges, and loaded the weapon. His father, returning home, heard a noise in the parlour as though a chair had fallen, and, hurrying into the room from the kitchen, be found his smo lying on his back with his feet towards the door and the rifle lying on his left leg. He had, it seems, according to Dr. Po wdrell, who was called in, placed the muzzle of the Run in his mouth, and then, by means Of tho handle of a stick, pulled the trigger, thus hhAving the whole of his brains away. There was not, this witness added, a single bone in the head uninjured.- Seeing that the lips of the deceased were not burnt, he must i have put the muzzle of the rifle quite n his mouth. Death was no doubt instantaneoPs• Inspector Tait discovered two cartridges, one of which was exploded, and upon the body was found nearly £lO in gold and silver, as well as a bank-book showing £,53 to the credit of the deceased. The jury returned a verdict of "Suicide while of unsound mind!"
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-07-01 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

REPORT OF IMPROVEMENT COMMITTEE. From this report it appears that the birth rate was 30-5 per 1,000, and the death rate 10.4 per 1,000. In answer to an advertisement for tenders for painting and repairing the Corn Exchange and Market Hail, several tenders were sent in, but the tradesman who had sent in the lowest tender had since written to the cl al to say there was a mistake in the tender, one item being left out, and a fresh tender tdhihadsee timeub sesei no ns speeenne tsi fiui enedd:vi isntehvt eharena l api dnr voc ep or letasi sis teeidmo nesna tma.notui naAitu aleoif int deg: ments being made. The result was that the chair— man proposed that the whole of the tenders sent in should be rejected, and advertise again. This was I seconded and carried. It was also decided to advertise for tenders for the repair of Clifton Street.  SUICIDE,—An inquest was held at the Foster's Arms Inn, on Thursday, b fore Mr.W. H. Phillips, _  coroner, on the body of Mary Downes, who committed suicide on Tuesday last by hanging herself,  Tne evidence went to show that deceiileci went up stairs to make the beds and as she did not come down her mother and a neighbour went up stairs and found deceased hanging to the bedsteads by a rope, dead. The jury returned a verdict that the deceased committed suicide while in a state of temporary insanity. A recent writer in our local papers has wisely observed that one "one of the follies of the age is to  _ buy dear Wines and Spirits." Another folly is to suppose that buying from these who make the largest return of duty is buying them in the cheapest market. The Merchant who pays duty upon thousand of gallons, pays in exact proportion to the retailer clearing a single cask. A great  profit must be gained to over enormous expenses of large business premises, cost of advertising, and an allowance of profit to the Agent, greater in many instances than taken by the respctable Merchant. To buy cheap is to buy where but one profit is made, and we cannot better illustrate our argument than by p Anting out the way in which nr townsmen, Messrs J. Rutland and Son; of 63 High Street, have opened up the trade. We have no hesi;_ation in saying that 25 per cent. is now saved by Vleir bringing the producer and the consumer together, over the prices paid a few years ago, and a trial willfully bear out our assertions Dudley Herald, December 24th, 1880,
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-03-18 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS. •  Jones says that he used to be proficient in half a dozen languages, but since he was married he is not even master of his own tongue.  "What is that, mother?" It is the Legislature, my child." " What does it do, mother?' "It repeals acts passed by the last Legislature, my child." Statistics show that women commit suicide most frequently on Sunday. It is on that day that the humiliation of having to wear last season's bonnet is most keenly felt.  A Saratoga girl writes homes:—" There are plenty of males here—lisping, silly, hair-parted-in-mieldle swells; but 0, for the sight of a genuine man!"  A doting young father boasts that his baby son is so affectionate that he sits up with his parents nearly all night; and so tough that he seems to have no conception of fatigue or of the time of day.  Printing for the blind was easily accomplished as soon as the printers could raise the letters.  "When I goes a shopping," said an old lady, "I allers ask for what I wants, and if they have it, and its cheap and its suitable, and I feel inclined to take it, and it can't be got at any place for less, I almost allers take it, without chaffering all day as most people do.  "Is it true," sho writes, "that all funny men are sad ?" heaven bless you, Annie, no; they are not. But the people who read their funny pieces, Annie, are sad. Ah, yes; theirs is the sorrow that mocks at sympathy.—Burlington Hawkeye.  A Chicago paper knows a thing or two. It says, "When a man imagines he is a prophet and a philosopher, he takes to long hair and a dirty overcoat." Religious intelligence in a Tennessee paper : " Her matchless and perfect figure was a model, and never showed to so much advantage as when she knelt for baptism."  Are you the happy father of a brace of vigorous, active boys? You are? Then you know all about having two snow forts in the front yard, and all the neighbours' brats being in wait behind them to give you a warm greeting with a snowball valley as you come swinging up the walk with half a dozen new lamp chimneys in your pocket and a rtxl4 pane of glass under your arm to set in the cellar window.  People who object to elaborate weddings should go to lowa, U.S., where a marriage was recently cele. larated with the following brief ceremony :—The happy pair were told to join their right hands, and then agked, "Do you want one another ? " Both replied" Yes." "Well, then you have one another ; " and the couple were man and wife.  There is a growing feeling among the American people that the man who can hear a fellow mortal complain of a cold in the head, and abatain from telling him what to do for it, is the man who should be the next President.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-08-12 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

WAGES IN THE UNITED STATES.—The chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labour Statistics publishes the following as the average earnings of persons employed in the printing trade during the past year: Jobbing compositors, £3 6s. Bd. per week; proofreaders, £4 10s. 10d. ; ditto women, £1 18s. 9d. ; job pressmen, £3 Os. 6d. ; news, £3 9s. 3d.; layers-on, £2 7s. 4d.; ditto women, £1 14s. ; compositors on daily papers, £4 3s. 4d. ; machine-minders on daily papers, 158.; book compositors, £2 14s. 2d.; ditto women, £1 17s. 6d.  SITICIDE OF A DoG.—The anecdotes acout dogs in your lad two numbers remind me of a long-lost , favourite of my own (says a correspondent of Land and Water). Tartar was a big, long-haired mongrel, more colley than anything, remarkable for sagacity and affection. But it is of his death and not of his life that I have to tell. It happened that a servant, who was extremely fond of the dog and who had been with us many years, left us, and from that time Tartar was .a changed animal. Naturally of a playful, frolicsome disposition, he now became sad and quiet, and would hardly do more than wag his tail even to his master. The servant who left was in the habit of feeding him, and from the time she left he hardly touched a morsel of the food that was given him, but would go out slowly and sadly into the village when he was let loose, and pay visits to all the places where the servant had been accustomed to take hiab But at these places he would take the food that was offered him, although he always avoided eating anything at his own home. This went on for several weeks, but he did not recover his spirits, and one morning was found drowned in a ditch with his mouth just covered by the water in a puddle which was only three or four inches deep. The dog was well known in the neighbourhood, and everybody agreed that it was a case of suicide, especially as death was the result of drowning, not mere exhaustion. The position he was found in and the depth of the water only left one conclusion that the poor old doggie had drowned himself from grief at the lou of his friend.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-02-04 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

STRANGE AFFAIR.  On Sunday morning, between seven and eight o'clock, a shocking discovery was made at Stamfordhill by a young man in the employ of the North London Tramways Company. In going to his work he had to go through Charles-street, which leads to some unbuilt-on land, a spot of a most lonely character. On the right-hand side, on a square piece of vacant, unfenced ground, and close against the wooden palings of St. John's Chapel-of-Ease, he saw ' a man crawling slowly on his hands and knees towards the roadway, who, upon examination, he found had his throat cut in a fearful manner. The young man at once communicated with the police, and Dr. Wilson was summoned to the spot, who had the sufferer conveyed to a house in Charles-street, where his injuries were attended to, and, an ambulance having been brought from Stoke Newington Police-station, he was conveyed to the German Hospital. In the meanwhile, his wife urns discovered searching about the neighbourhood for her husband, who had left home about seven o'clock the previous evening with two shillings to go on an errand, and whom she had not seen since. She sad his name was William Rolls, of 144, Tewkesbury - road, Seven Sister's-road, and, in answer to her questions, he said in a whisper " Three boys dia it.,, He then made signs of having been knocked about, and pointed to his waistcoat and trousers pockets, all of which were turned out, and no part of the money he left with wal found on him. A new razor covered with blood was fond near the largest • clot of blood which lay on the ground, while there were a number of finger marks of blood on the church palings, as if someone had wiped their hands backwards and forwards on them ; and several smaller marks exist between that place and the spot t) which the man had crawled. The friend.; of the injured !»311 do not encourage the idea of his having attempted suicide, a. is was' a sober man, 58 years of age, and had been a teetotaler for six years. The blood on his throat was congealed which leads to the idea that he must have lain on the waste ground where he was found all night, and he made signs to his wife that he had got no further the night before on his way to Stoke Newington,
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-02-04 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

SITICIDI THROUGH DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE.—In London, on Monday, at the Coroner's Court, Goldenlane, Mr. W. J. Payne, held an inquest On thebody of Geolge Dennis Foulger, aged 25.—Mr. J. R. Foulger, inspector in the City Police Force, identified the deceased as his son, who had been a grocer, and lodged with witness at the Moor-lane Police-station' Fore. street. The deceased had good bodily health, but had suffered from fits of despondency, particularly of late. The young man had a very strong attachment for a young lady, a ward in Chancery, and she and her guardians told him that his proposals could not be entertained as she was already engaged. He, however, continued to follow her about, but she did her best to keep out of his way, as she was afraid. Last week the young man left home for a day or two and witness had since heard that he had been away to see the young, lady married. Upon returning witness found his son in very low spirits. Shortly after eight o'clock on Friday morning witness went into his private apartment, and there found him sitting in a chair with the top of his head nearly blown off. By his side, on the floor, was an old pistol, a box of bullets, and percussion caps. The only cause witness could assign for his son destroying himself was his disappointment in lcve. A paper was found in which it is stated th it Foulger left all his money to the young lady referred to.—Mr. Fendick, surgeon said he was called to see the deceased. Foulger had placed the pistol in the corner of his right eye and discharged it, and had blown the front and top of the skull completely off.—A verdict of "Suicide whilst of unsound mind" was returned. "THE QUEEN'S ENGLISH" (OR SCOTCH).—Minister: " Weel, John, an hoo did ye like ma son's discoorse ?" —John: "Weel, meenister, sh maun admeet he 'S vera soond, but, oh man! he's no deep! His pronoonciation 's no vera gweed ; but ah 've nae doobt he 'll impruv' !"—Puneh.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-06-17 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.  nervous.  Henry Taylor, confectioner, High Street, said the knife produced belonged to deceased. I he Deputy-coroner summed up and in the course of his speech sail as far as his own knowledge was concerned eceased was des:rvedly respected and liked by all who knew him, and was one of the last men in the world likely to destroy himself. The evidence conclusively showed that deceased inflicted the wounds himself that caused his death, and that he was not right in his mind when he committed the sad deed. Never since he had been deputycoroner had he had a jury who brought in a verdict offelo-de-se, and there was no evidence in this case to cause the jury to return such a verdict. The jury unanimously returned a verdict that " Deceased committed suicide whilst in a state of temporary insanity." The foreman of the jury (Mr. S. Field), on behalf of the jury, tendered t ) the relatives of the deceased their sincerest sympathy in the prief which bad overtaken them, and at the same time testified to the high respect fe't for the deceased. Mr. R. J Mi lward thanked the jury for :their kind remarks.  A recent writer in our local papers ha wisely. observed that one "one of the follies of theage is to buy dear Wines and Spirits." Another folly is to suppose that buying from those who make the largest return of duty is buying them in the cheapest market. The Merchant who pays duty upon tbouiand of gallons, pays in exact propor— tion to the retailer clearing a single cask. A great profit must be 7„ainel to cover enormous expenses of large business premises, cost of advertising, and an allowance of profit to the Agent, greater in many instances than taken by the resp.:cta,ble Merchant. To buy cheap is to buy where but one profit is made, and we cannot bAter illustrate our argument than by pointing out the way in which our townsmen, Alessts J. Rutland and Son, of 63 High Street, have opened up the trade. We have no hesitation in saying that 25 per cent. is now saved by their bringing the producer and the consumer together, over the prices paid a few years ago, and a trial willfully bear out our assertions j Ludley Herald, December 24th, 1880,.  NEW ALIIAMBRA THEATRE,— During the week Mr. Alfred Parry's celebrated "Queen's Evidence" company have delighted the audiences at the above theatre, by their superior acting, and we can safely say tint Mr. Parry's company is one of the best that. has been performing here. "Queen's Evidence" is • a capital pi, ce, full of thrilling interes-, and is put on the boards in a high class manner, there being no fault to find either in the acting or the stage effetts.—To-night (Saturday) " yed. Susan" is announced, to be followed by " Qu, en's Evidence" and those of our readers who have not as yet seen this play cannot do better than avail themselves of the opportunity offered them of seeing a thorough good company on their last appearance here.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1882-04-08 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

STRANGE SUICIDE OF A LIFE. GUARDSMAN.  In London on Tuesday Mr. Langham held an inquiry at the. household Cavalry Barracks, Knightsbridge, relating to the death of Troop Corporal-Major John Wheat, aged 39, of the 2nd Life Guards, who committed suicide by hanging on Sunday last.— Thomas George Entwistle, troop corporal-major in the same regiment, stated that at half-past eleven o'clock on Sunday morning last he saw the deceased in one of the rooms on the ground floor of the barracks, and he was then in a very despondent state. Witness knew of no other cause for his despondency than that he had to leave, having completed his period of twentyone years' service. Re- was much liked by his comrades, and had conducted himself in a mcst exemplary manner.—Frederick Ryder, a trooper in the 2nd Life Guards, stated that on Sunday last, at the request of Mrs. Wheat, he went to the quarter-master's stores, where he saw the deceased in a corner in a standing position. Owing to the darkness, the witness did not see at the time that he was hanging; but upon returning with a comrade he found the deceased suspended by the neck to some piping on the roof. The witness produced the piece of cord which the deceased-had fastened about his neck, and went on to state that the fact of the deceased being obliged to leave the regiment "had broken his heart." The men were sorry to lose him, and he was equally sorry to leave them.—Surgeon-Major Spey stated that he was called to see the deceased, who had been cut down, and was lying in the passage of the quartermaster's stores. The witness made an examination, and found the deceased quite demi. From the thinness of the rope-and the great weight npon it the rope had Completely severed the windpipe, causing instantaneous death. The witness had known the deceased for 16 years as a good soldier, and knew of nothing which would lead him to suppose that he would destroy himself except insanity, brought on by despondency at leaving.—The jury returned a verdict of suicide whilst of unsound mind.