The Sun. — 1822-04-03 (London, England)

LAMENTABLE SUICIDE OF LIEUT. TRAJL. At three o'clock yesterday an inquisition was taken before THOMAS SHELTON, Esq., in the Committee-room of Bethlem Hospital, on the body of Lieutenant Charles Trail, aged. 30 years, a patient in the above asylum, who destroyed hiraself in the following manner : Charles Beech, one of the keepers belonging to the Institution, deposed that, on Sunday last, about 12 o'clock at noon, he 'locked the deceased in his cell in the gallery, having previously shaved and dressed him. He was in such a weak and debilitated state that he had not sufficient strength to dress himself. After witness had locked him up, he went into the Green yard to attend the other patients, but shortly returned to him, and then he was sitting on the side of his oed. Witness endeavoured to persuade him to take his tation of food, but he refused, as he had done for several days previous. Witness again left him, and in about half an hour after he returned again, and on unlocking his cell-door he found the deceased close against it, with his face towards him, as if he were coining out. Witness did not immediately on opening the door know that he had destroyed himself; but afterwards found that he was suspended to his white neckkerchief by the neck, the end of which was very ingeniously made fast to a single_wire of a slight fence over the door of his cell, enclosing the iron grating. He was quite dead, though warm; a wooden bowl which the deceased had for a certain use was near him, and on which he stood to fasten the end of the neckkerchief to the fence. Witness instantly procured 111 r. Wright, the medical gentleman, who bled the deceased, but life was quite extinct. Mr. Edward Wright, the medical gentleman, and superintendant of the establishment, stated that on his seeing the deceased he was quite dead : he opened a vein, but obtained no blood. The deceased had been a patient in the asylum since the Ist of November last. His case was of a most desperate nature. He was always under apprehensions of some evil designs against him. He had refused food for six of saven days, thinking that it would be mixed with poison. His obstinacy in that particular was so strong, that his rations were obliged to be administered by means of a tube. The deceased had been a Lieutenant in the 95th Regiment, or Rifle Corps, and had served-under the Duke of 'Wellington in all his campaigns : he was a very enterprising officer, and had received gieat patronage from the late Duke of Kent. His father was a General in the 'British service. The deceased had been.of a very free disposition, which is supposed in a great degree to have brought on the direful malady. A Juryman thought that the patients would be prevented from laying violent hands on theniselves, if, instead of the wire-grating being over the door, a shutter with a round hole in the middle was substituted ; the' ventilation would be just the same. The whole of the Jurorsibeing of the same opinion,Mr.Wright, the superintendant, was requested to state the opinion of the Jury to the Committee of Governors at the next meeting, which Mr. Wright promised to do. The Jury afterwards consulted, and returned a verdict that the deceased " Hanged himself, being at the time in a state of desperate madness: