npedrazzini/19thc_murder_suicide_news huggingface dataset:
The Sun. — 1842-06-13 (London, England)

MACE INTELLIGENCE,  BO W-STREET.-(THIS DAY.)  ATTEMPTED SUICIDE.— A woman, named Elizabeth Brown, was charged with attempting to drown herself in St. James's Park on Saturday night. Denney Farrow, one of the Park-constables, deposed that when on duty on Saturday night, about seven o'clock, in the inclosure of St. James's-park, his attention was attracted to a large crowd of persons standing at the edge of the water ; he proceeded to the spot, when he found the prisoner in charge of a man named Wood, who stated that he found her about two feet in the water, whence she was just going to make a spring, when he seized her and pulled her out. She was the worse for liquor at the time. •  Mr: HALL very justly remarked, that if they had let her give herself a good ducking, and then have pulled her out, it would have been the best thing for her perhaps. • The witness said he asked the prisoner if she would go home if he would allow her to do so, but she said if he did not take her to the station-house she would go to Hyde-park and do it. The prisoner stated that she was a laundress and a married woman. She was very sorry, and would not do it again if allowed to escape this time, but she was drunk when she made the attempt. Mr. HALL said, his only surprise was that she should approach water at all ; if it had been a large sheet of gin he should not have wondered. He had a great mind to commit her for trial.  The woman's husband, a respectable looking labouring man, begged the Magistrate to let her go; he was sure she would not do so again, if she were allowed to go now. Mr. HALL then gave her up to her husband, with a caution that if she were brought before him again for a like offence, he should most certainly commit her to Newgate.  MONEY and uOMMEIiciAL
The Sun. — 1842-06-13 (London, England)

CORONER'S INQUESTS. MELANCHOLY SUICIDE.—On Saturday a long investira• thin took place before Mr. Baker, the Coroner, at the City of Paris, Banner's-fields, Bethnal green, on the body of George Duck, aged 48, who committed suicide, by drowning himself in the Rgent's Canal, under the melancholy circumstame-e: subjoined:— Philip Woodland, of 1, Arthur-street, Hackney, said he knew the deceased, who for many years carried on an extensive business as a mathematical• instrument maker in White-. chapel, employing between 60 and 70 men ; but reverses, business caused him to become a bankrupt to the amount of several thousand pounds. He saw hint last alive on Thursday, when he appeared much distressed, and asked witness for a penny to shave with, which he gave him. He complat peal. that he could get no work, and was nearly out of his mind, for • his family were crying for bread, and he had no food to g them ; and the deceased also sited tears. He said, also, that Ise expected to get his family into Bishopsgatc workhouse, but le had great repugnance to go in himself, and could not find it; in his heart to apply. His goals had been distrained on for ft nt. Robert Russell, lock-keeper of the Banner's Hall Lock, deposed to finding the body about three o'clock on Friday mu entug under the bridge. which he got out of the water by the drags. His hat was n-ar and full of gravel, amongst which he found three dupli -ates for vat iuus instruments, for I Bs., and. an the band of the hat was found a letter, as follows : "My name is George Duck, age 48, of Mite-end Newtown. lam obliged to Mr. Holmes, of lialimoon-stretet, Bishopsgate-street, ..vho has kindly sent 111 V poor wife : aid children to the workhouse. I have sold all had to pay tiny debts, and I pawned two beds and one bolster for 21. 9s. 6d. I can do no more for my pour family, for I have not a pe any in the world." The Jury ultimately returned a verdict of " Temporary Insanity." Exenaoentearte
The Sun. — 1842-06-07 (London, England)

EPHESUS.  MELANCHOLY SUICIDE OE A BOY.—A most extraordinary and determined suicide of a boy took place on Saturday last, under the following very painful circumstances : The name of the youth in question, whose age is but 15, is Coe, residing with his parents at 206, High-street, Wapping, and who terminated his existence by taking a large quantity of arsenic. About fifteen months since, a hair-dresser, named Dimond, then residing in the Commercial-road East, was found guilty, and had sentence of death passed upon him, hut which was subsequently commuted to transportation for life, on a charge of having committed an unnatural crime. The deceased boy was the apprentice on whose evidence alone Dimond was convicted, and on whom the capital offence was proved to have been committed. Since that period he had been residing with his parents, and in consequence of the unfortunate circumstance alluded to, has been unable to procure a situation of any description, which appeared to p,ey much upon his mind. On Friday last he wrote a latter to one of his brothers, in which were the words, " Although I shall never meet you happy in this world, I hope I shall in the next." On Saturday he left home about six o'clock, as he said, to look for a situation at Stratford. On the road he purchased half an ounce of arsenic, and called at the house of a 'relative at Stepney, where he asked for some water, and in which it is supposed he took the poison. He proceeded to Stratford, and laid himself down to die in a hedge, close to the borders of Hainault-forest, where he was found by some police of the K division, and in an almost lifeless condition, hi which state he was conveyed to the London Hospital, .where he died shortly after admission.
The Sun. — 1842-07-27 (London, England)

BILL.  (6:whaled front our Fourth Etiition of last night.) The Duke of WELLINGTON must interrupt the Noble Lord ; when he said they had acquired the name of bastiles, it was only from those who thought like the Noble Lord himself.—(A laugh.) Lord STAN HOPE contended that they were bastiles, the Commissioners only issuing their Iftires-de-cachet against the poor. They were prisons in their form, their seclusion, their rigour, and worse than prisons in the quantity and quality of the food given in them. Since the enactment of the law there had been a fearful increase of crime. The state of the labouring population must be various in different places ; but at the present time it was worse than it had been at any period of his recollection. As to the economy of the measure, which was to be one of its chief recommendations, in the agricultural districts the rates had fearfully increased, in one place from 3s. to 1 ls. in the pound. He complained that the poor had no remedy under the law ,if it injured them ; it was adding insult to injury to tell them that they could go by a writ of certiorari to the Court of Queen's Bench. Cases of injustice and oppression had occurred, and in those cases the Poor-law Commissioners, in the persons of the Assistant-Commissioners, had themselves been the judges. Their Lordships could not read a newspaper without finding recorded cases of starvation to death, and of suicide occasioned by horror of the workhouse. Had they not read of cases where petty thefts were committed for the sake of avoiding starvation in the comfortable asylum of a gaol ? Had not all this misery been occasioned by the accursed infamous Act, as the late Lord Eldon justly termed it ? They might repeal .the Act; but they could never recal to life the thousands who had been murdered in the rew prisons. He warned their Lordships to beware in time. There was no.animal so weak ur so tame that ill-treatment long continued would not rouse to anger. Charles the First was brought to the scaffold by the atten pt to levy ship-money, and Charles the Tenth, surrounded by powerful army, was hurled from his throne. Let them beware of the consequence of upholding this iniquitous law, or they would see similar events in this country —they would shortly see a general, convulsion. The Duke of
The Sun. — 1842-12-19 (London, England)

SUICIDE THROUGH FILIAL SORROW.-011 Saturday evening Mr. Payne held an inquest at the Queen's Head, Cree-church-lane, Leadenhall-street, on the body of Elias Jacobs, aged 40, a coffee-house keeper, of No. 2, Bury-street, St. Mary Axe, and of the Hebrew persuasion. Julia Hiams, servant to deceased, said that, seeing on that morning he did not come down stairs at his accustomed hour, she suspected, from previous circumstances, that he had destroyed himself in his bed-room. Fearing to go and ascertain the fact by herself, she sent for a policeman, who forced the bed-room door, and found the deceased suspended by the neck from the bed rail, by means of a cord. He had been dead, a surgeon who had been called in said, many hours. Ever since his father's death, which took place eleven months ago, his sorrow was so great that it frequently amounted to insanity, and latterly he was attended by a keeper from a lunatic asylum, who more than once prevented him from dashing out his brains by butting his head against the wall. The passing of the Incometax Act had added to his insanity, and his constant incoherent ravings about the ultimate injury he fancied it would do him, so much annoyed his customers that they abandoned his shop one after the other. Though, besides his business, he inherited a fair portion of freehold property, he dreaded so much the effect of the Income-tax, that no argument could persuade him that it would not be his ruin. Verdict, " Insanity." PALERMO, Nov. 28.—After many years repose, Etna has during the last three we ekspoured forth immense masses of fire. It seems that considerable torrents of lava are flowing in the direction of Bronte. The damage already done is said to be immense. The fine weather allows us to roam about the whole night, admiring the extraordinary spectacle. Numerous strangers come to be near the scene. .
The Sun. — 1842-10-07 (London, England)

LEWES.--DETERMINED SUICIDE.—An inquest was held on Wednesday at the Snow Drop (a house so called in consequence of its being the site of an avalanche, attended with loss of several lives five years ago), before- Mr. Gell, Coroner for East Sussex, on the body of Samuel Hillman, bargemaster and collector of tolls in. the Ouse Lower Navigation. From the evidence adduced, it appeared that about eleven o'clock on Monday morning the deceased was found hanging in a stable occupied by Mr. Cooter, in the Cliff Chalk Pit, and on the body being cut down, his throat was discovered to have been severely cut, but not sufficiently toNestroy life. -It would appear that, finding the first attempt at self-destruction ineffectual, he carefully fastened the stable-door by means of a rope, and then suspended himself over the door by means of a handkerchief fastened to a nail. When cut down deceased was quite dead. It further appeared in evidence that the deceased had of late been very melancholy, owing- to his inability to balance his accounts as collector to the Ouse Navigation Company. The Jury returned a verdict, that " Deceased destroyed himself while insane." Deceased, who is of a highly respectable family, has left a wife (who is dangerously ill) and ten children to deplore his end. A letter from Vienna of the 20th ult. says:—" The municipality of our capital -has just completed an establishment unique in its kind in Germany, or perhaps in the world—a swimming school for the winter. The premises of this useful institution are composed of a room of red marble, 1631 feet long and 46 wide, covered with a vaulted roof of glass supported by 18 cast-iron columns with composite capitals. In the middle of the room is the basin, 122 feet long and 40 wide, lined with earthenware, behind which are pipes for conveying steam, in order to k€ep the water at a certain temperature. Round the room are two rows of closets for dressing, heated, as well as the room itself, by hot air. Twelve huge lustres for gas, suspended from the roof, give light to the place until eleven o'clock at night."
The Sun. — 1842-12-14 (London, England)

SEDUCTION AND SUICIDE.  An inquest was held on -Monday before Mr. Wakley, M.P., at the Skinners' Arms, Hart-street, Paddington, as to the death of Emily Churchill, aged twenty-two. Mary Jackson, of 10, Hart-street, widow, stated that the deceased had lodged at her house for about four months. She had a child with her, and said that her parents were the owners of a very large farm in Yorkshire. She left home about two years ago, -if consequence of some differences with her family, and about eighteen months ago got into service in London, and very soon after was seduced by a gentleman under a solemn promise of marriage. If she went home, she said, she feared her father and mother would not look at her, and she thought her seducer was going• to be married to another; and if he did, she would not be long for this world, for she could never- afterwards be happy in it. Witness had frequently seen a gentleman call oa her. The last time was on Monday. On Thursday he sent deceased a letter, and she afterwards told witness he was going into the country for a few months. The deceased remarked that was only an excuse, and she believed he was going to get married the next morning. On the Friday, finding the deceased did not come down to breakfast as usual, she went up to her room, and found her hanging by a rote attached to her neck, and suspended from a nail in the wall. The poor child was lying in bed asleep. Witness immediately went for a surgeon, who, on his arrival, said she had been dead two or three hours. She was very low-spirited after reading the letter, but witness had no idea she meant to destroy herself. Witness added, that a letter was found on the deceased's table ; it was unsealed, and was to the following purport : "My dear Charles,—l cannot bear up with my misfortune and trouble any longer; you know you have so often promised to marry me. I could never bear to see my father and, mother again unless you keep your promise, and now you are going to get married to another ; it is more than I can bear, dear Charles; I did not think you would have so deceived me after your sacred promise. My mind is quite distracted ; people in this world will laugh at me, and I shall be pointed at by every one. lam resolved to make away with myself, and before you receive this letter I shall be no more ; but I pray God you will take oare of my dear little Emily, and do not desert her as you have me. I hope God will forgive me, and my dear father and mother. Once more I pray you to take care of Emily. Adieu, dear Charles, and God be with you.—Your once truly affectionate lover, "
The Sun. — 1842-12-14 (London, England)

WIFE SHOT BY HER HUSBAND. On Friday night, between six and seven o'clock, John Hunt, who keeps a public-house in Waterbeach Fen, near Cambridge, went into his house with a loaded gun, which he discharged at his wife, and instantly escaped. The gun was discharged at the poor woman's head, and the charge blew away part of her lower jaw, and, passing in an oblique direction, also took off and lacerated the upper part of her shoulder Mr Pinchard, surgeon, of Cottenham, was called in with all possible speed, and he extracted two large pieces of bone from the lower jaw, and dressed the wounds, but it was not thought possible the poor creature could long survive the extensive injuries she had received.  There were two other men in the house when the murderous attempt was made, but they were too pa ralysed by the occurrence to secure Hunt, who instantly made his escape, and has not since been heard of, although diligent search was made at an early hour this morning. It appears that it was a feeling of jealousy that prompted the wretched man to the committal of the diabolical act; he had, we understand, many times threatened to take away the life of his wife, and had been absent from his home for several days past. The parties had been married twenty-six year, and have three children, the eldest being married, and Hunt is supposed to have got through a deal of property. Mrs. Hunt is the daughter of an old gentleman named Newton, who left the scene of the tragedy only a few minutes before the arrival of the infuriated husband.  Hunt is about forty-five years of age; and it is generally supposed at Waterbeach that he had committed suicide, and search has been made in the river which runs near the house, but without success. The Cambridge Independent Press, in noticing this melancholy occurrence in a second edition, states that this is the fifth attempt at murder in the town and neighbourhood of Cambridge, within the last three weeks. The attempt made by the green-grocer, in the market-place of the town, to cut his wife's throat very recently, proceeded from the same cause of jealousy which it appears was the origin of the Water beach tragedy. The last account relative to the latter occurrence, which reached Cambridge on Monday night, stated that the unfortunate woman still lingered in the most excruciating agony, without any hope being entertained of her recovery.
The Sun. — 1842-12-14 (London, England)

EXTRAORDINARY ATTEMPT AT  MURDER AND SUICIDE. An attempt to commit murder, under rather singular circumstances, occurred at the Auction Mart Tavern, yesterday morning, about half an hour after midnight. A young man, about twenty-one years of age, who had been in the capacity of potboy for some considerable time, and who had been most respectably recommended, had, it appears, conceived a passion for Elizabeth Magnus, who had been about four years employed at the tavern as barmaid. She being nearly forty years old, gave the youth no encourarment, but still he persevered in his unwelcome attentions. Oa Monday Mr. Baker, the proprietor of the tavern, with some friends, had gone to the Haymarket Theatre, to the benefit of Mr. Archer, and only Mrs. Baker was left at home to see the house shut up at the usual hour ; Elizabeth Magnus went below to lock the cellar door, and the potboy (whose name we could not ascertain) was close by her— she remarked something strange in his expression of countenance, and asked him why he stared so at her ?- He immediately discharged a pistol at her, She. called out " Murder," and -the alarm brought Mrs. Baker down, and the police constable was soon on the spot. The woman was bleeding,and her clothes were on fire. When Mrs. Baker first seized the potboy by the arm, she discovered that his throat was cut. The policeman took the knife out of his hand, and found a razor in his pocket, and a number of percussion caps. The pistol was one of the cheap Birmingham manufacture. The youth was sent to St. Thomas's Hospital, where it was found the incision in his throat was not very deep, nor considered dangerous. The unfortunate female was taken to her bed-room, and when she was undressed, the bullet fell from her clothes. It would appear, from the fact of her clothes having caught fire, that the young man had been very close behind her. The bullet passed entirely through her body on her right side, perforating her stays, and had been caught in her woollen underclothes. She was able to detail all the circumstances, and was placed under the best medical advice that could be procured, ured so that the most sanguine hopes are enter. tained of the safety of, her life, although, perhaps, it may be attended with a tedious recovery.  PRINTERS' ALMS•IiOUSB
The Sun. — 1842-12-09 (London, England)

AMERICAN NEWS  LIVERPOOL, WEDNESDAY EVENING.  By the arrival of the ship North America, Captain Lowber, one of the New York liners, which sailed from that city on the 19th ult., we have received papers two days later than those received by the Great Western. They do not, however, possess much political interest. The North America brought 15 passengers in the cabin, and about 140 in her steerage ; the latter are chiefly emigrants from this country, who are returning home disappointed and pennyless. Off Waterford she met and spoke the steamer Britannia. The Mail steamer Acadia arrived at Boston on on the 17th ult., after an excellent voyage of 13 days. A great excitement has occurred in New York by the suicide of John C. Colt, the individual who was tried and condemned a few months ago for the murder of Mr. Adams. On the day appointed for his execution he was married in the presence of the sheriff and officers to a woman with whom he had formerly cohabited ; and at a few minutes before the hour appointed for his execution, and when he was expected to be led forth, the sheriff and attendants on entering his cell, where he had been left for a short time alone, found him stretched lifeless, he having stabbed himself with a large clasp knife, which he had managed to secrete, or which had been conveyed to. him, He declared to the last that he had killed Mr. Adams in self-defence only. The schooner Creole, Captain Delvaille, arrived* at New Orleans on the Bth instant, from Matamoras, in ten days.' The army under General Woll had retreated beyond the Rio Grande, and a part of them had arrived at Matamoras. The Mexican authorities had prohibited the circulation of newspapers out of the Mexican territory. The Creole brought 27,693 dollars in specie. The officers and crew of the Spitfire, one of her British Majesty's steamers, wrecked on the West India station, were brought to New York on the 18th, in the brig Anawan, from Belize. One of those disgraceful scenes of outrage called Lynching had occurred in Barbour county, Alabama, where a mob of 130 persons violently seized a Mr. G. W. Lore, who had been thrice tried for a murder, of which he was suspected, and without further legal proceedings, he having escaped from gaol, seized and hung him. The Mexican troops under the command of General WoLL, consisting of 1,200 men, had returned from the invasion of Texas, which incur. sion was attended with the loss of 600 men. No Mexican• papers were allowed to be sent to the United States.  The intelligence conveyed to Boston by the Acadia had reached New York, without having any effect upon the markets. Cotton was in pretty fair demand at steady prices; and flour was in request at former rates. A small amount of business was done in bills on England at 106 to 106 i, and on France the rate of exchange was 5 40.