The Warwickshire Herald. — 1899-01-05 (Birmingham, West Midlands, England)

SUICIDES.  Mr. Braxton Hicks has held an inquest at Wandsworth on the body of Harold Withall, aged seventeen, the son of William Henry Withall, of Portinscale-road, Wandsworth, who was found dead in his bedroom on Thursday morning.—Mrs. Withall said her boy was a student at Oxford, and came home for the Christmas vacation on December 10th. He had had a very prosperous career at college, and returned home very cheerful. On Wednesday evening he went to bed apparently cl eerrul. and she saw him comfortable in bed. About half-rast eight next morning the went into her son's room t) call him for breakfast, wlizn she found him hanging to the bed-rail with a silk I ondkerthief round his neck. He was dead. Why her son should have done such a thing was a mystery.— Dr. H. Jeaffreson said he knew Mr. Witkall, and always found him an even-minded and well-balanced young man. He was well educated, and without any special extravaganc.. He had never noticed any symptoms of brain trouble. He saw the body about a quarter of an hour after it was found, and Mr. Withal' had then been dead about half an hour. Death was due to asphyxia, from hangirg. In his opinion Mr. Withall acted in a moment of mertil aberration.— The jury returned a verdkt of suicide during temporary insanity.  _ The dead body or Miss Winifred Lind, dsughter of the late Calonel Lind, was found by the side of a corn-rick midway between Teignincuth and Dawlish, Devonshire, at daybreak on Sunday. The young lady on Saturday evening threatened to destroy herself, and ran away from her sister. After an all-night search her corpse was found in the field. The circumstances point to *death by poison. It was discovered that the deceased visited a chemist's shop on the previous evening. A shocking case of suicide has occurred on board the Star, torpedo.boat destviver. in Portspsouth harbour. A hrst-class petty officer, named Hobert Bowman, was found shot on Sunday morning, and a rill? wai lying near. lie had, it is supposed. on Saturday evenirg locked himself in the cabin of the commander, who was on leave. and his boots and socks being off, it is believed that he fired the ride on himself with his toe.  In an article under this title in the Young Man for January, we are told that there are present in every square inch of air, earth, or water, innumerable infinitesimal germs of life with immeasurable powers of reproduction. Thus upon the surface of one square inch there would be ample room for as many bacteria as we could count in twelve years, at the rate of one per second, without any stop at all for food and rest. Some of tl e etrawberry icecreams bought at well-known West End confectioners have been prey; d to contain fourteen million germs per cubic centimetre—that is, in English measure, a little more than a solid quarter of an inch. The spores or seeds of the bacteria, which in the c:ry condition abound everywhere, are even more minute still, Py investigations at once beautiful and conclusive, our modern bacteriologists, such se Pasteur, Tyndall, Dellinger, Koch, Klein. Sm., have cot only demonstrated the actual existence of them infinitesimal terms, .but in very many cases have traced their life) histories, thus laying the foundations of the science of bacteriology with all its recent and ever-growing developments. How delicate and difficult such studies are, may be gathered from the fact, which is fairly typical, that in a drop of water no larger than • pin's head there is room for at least five hundred millions of such an organism as the bacillus anthracis, which is the deadly germ that gives rise to "wool-sorter's disease." And how necessary such investigations are to the preservation The sentence of three months' hard labour passed of the public health may also be estimated from at Bow-street on Friday on Walter Jarvis, who SSW occasional analyses of the water conveyed now in found in another person's room in the Hotel Cecil, such vast quantities to all our great cities. For 1, looked upon in Horsham, near which town he wholesome drinking water, it is generally agreed lived, as a miscarriage of justice. that in Oils cubic centimetre there ought not The Postmaster-General announces that the nionev to be more than • hundred bacteria. But careful placed at his disposal by Parliament for telegraph analysis of the Southwark and Vauxhall Company's extensions for the current financial year is already 'water not so long since shewed, in Dr. Klein's emhausted. and that it will not, therefore, be hands, 6.1.,040 per cent Other London specimens possible to put any fresh extension in • hand until varied from 33,600 to 4liaScOteo.psr cent. No ammo* aria. flear,h IsO newt Is netwasaiT upon such The Anancial statement issued by the Treasury Mews that the total revenue for the quarter =ll2 James Gray, grinder, of Bull, has been committed December 31st. 1898, was £28,632,334, prison for nine months, by the Doncaster £27,768,672 for the corresponding period of IW-7- to regiments have _Recoithrdattnier fofer. The stabbing young women in the streets Three additional United States • been ordered to Cuba. e American tr number 31914 including both officersaOr in Cube men. Thomas Johnson, a well-known Swanem, An inquest has been held at tiiiil‘`ford on 11,irriet has been drowned. He was boarding a vessel in the Mary Nlanatield, widow, caretaker of the Canadian Mumbles Roads, and fell into the water. hut, Bisley camp, who died fr, inj Jries received Colonel H. H. Mathias, CD., A.D.C., fat Betio • latim accident, It was not cite:. whether the fallen Gordon Highlanders, the hero of Dargal, has lamp, which had a glass reservoir, exploded as she signified his willingness to accept the honorary was carrying arryi it, or whether she fell with it. • freedom of the Borough of Tenbv, which the Carverdict of accidental death was returned. recently decided to confer %loon him.  lIENELIK AND THE biTHGEONS. The latest news of the Emperor Menelik, says the 211arrbestep Guardian, touches his interest in surgical operation.. In the hospital at Addis Abeba, attached to the Russian Miss!on. he is continually watching the burgeons at their work. Their skill often calls forth frum him expressions of admiration. His great desire is to act the part of an assistant—for example, to hold the limb when an amputation is br•og performed. He never misses an operation.  . .