The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1839-08-02 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

DETERMINED SUICIDE.  A melancholy case of suicide occurred last Thursday in the house of Mr. William Lockett, Richmond' Hill, Broughton Road. Mrs. Lockett, it appears, had occasion to go from home that day, and left the servant, Maria Shepherd, in charge of the house till her return. In the evening, some children, relations of Mr. Lockett, happened to be playing on the ground in front of the house ; and after a time, began to suspect something was not right, from the blinds being all down, and the doors, which they tried, both locked ; and from the servant, whom they knew to be in the house, never making her appearance as she was accustomed to do. At last one of the children went to communicate their suspicions to the neighbours ; several of whom came, and after vainly knocking at the doors, and trying to look in at the windows, they gained admission by putting a little boy in at the cellar window. The back and front doors were both found locked, and the keys on the inside, which showed some one was in the house. The doors of all the rooms were locked, and the keys removed. On looking through the keyhole of one bedroom door, a rope was seen tied to the bed-post, up-on which the door was broken open. The girl was lying upon her back on the floor in a pool of blood, which had flowed from a large gash in her throat. The keys of the several doors in the house were laid in a row, with great precision, on the dressing table. Opposite the looking-glass a chair was placed, from which the girl seemed to have fallen ; and an open razor, with blood upon it, was upon the table. She was still breathing, wi. h great difficulty. Mr. Holt, surgeon, of Broughton Road, was sent for, and found her cold, but breathing. He, in some measure, restored warmth, and had her conveyed immediately to the Infirmary ; but she died soon after her arrival there. On looking into the room next the one in which she was lying, two cups were found, with drugs in each, of some draught which was supposed to be poisonous ; and, on further examination, it appeared that she had been sick, and had vomited considerably ; this, with the circumstance of the rope, which was very tightly tied to tha bedpost, and apparetly strained, makes it apparent that the unhappy girl resorted to three different moees of putting an end to her existence. Mr. Holt examined the dregs of one of the cups, and detected the presence of oxymuriate of mercui y, a mineral poison (the corrosive sublimate of the shops), of which, it is very probable, the deceased had taken a quantity ; but the vomiting would seem to have prevented its deleterious quality from operating promptly, and consequently the wretched girl tried the other two modes of self-destruction. An inquest was held on the body on Saturday, before Mr. Chapman, the borough coroner, at the Infirmary, when Maria Jones, servant maid to Mr. Agnew, of Richmond Hill, stated that the deceased came to their house about half-past nine o'clock on Thursday morning last, and stayed until halfpast twelve at noon. She was very merry, and appeared quite sensible in her conversation. She mentioned a young man who had been paying his addresses to her ; but, having asked her to be married at Liverpool, she had refused, as she wished to be married at Manchester. This was about nine weeks ago, and she said she had only seen him once since, at her father's house, in Salford. She also said he had been paying his addresses to a fellow-servant, who had lived with her at Mr. Leake's, and that she had gone to Liverpool, with the intention of proceeding with him to Australia ; but that he had gone alone, leaving her behind. Mr. William Lockett stated, that the deceased had been in his service rather more than seven weeks, and she had been before with him about two years, having lived in the interval (18 mouths) with his daughter, Mrs. Leake. She was periodically subject to fits of dulness ; he had remonstrated with her, and had spoken to her frequently about it when she lived with Mrs. Leake, and she would burst into tears, after which would come round again. She had been so particularly the last four days. On these occasions of despondency, and while in the kitchen with fellow-servants, she would frequently burst into immoderate fits of laughter ; and, when left to herself, she would frequently flag again into her usual fit of despondency. When he and Mrs. Lockett went out on Thursday evening, she appeared rather more cheerful. She had no cause whatever for despondency that he knew of: having been a favourite servant, she had invariably been treated with the greatest kindness. Other evidence was given as the other circumstances detailed above. The jury jreturned a verdict, that the deceased cut her throat while in a state of insanity.—Mauchester Guardian.  \\\,, IkA 411t\