npedrazzini/19thc_murder_suicide_news huggingface dataset:
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1868-01-25 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

WIFE MURDER AND SUICIDE IN FRANCE.—A railway guard on the Marseilles Railway, named Dentrat, and residing at Orange, France, has just murdered his wife by shooting her during a parox‘ cm of jealousy, after which he committed suicide. The neighbours had heard a detonation in their apartment about eleven in the evening, and two others about half-an-hour later, but as the in-an frequently returned home intoxicated and created a disturbance by quarrelling with his wife, they paid no attention. On the following morning, however, a little girl aged between six and seven, the daughter of the deceased, who had been lying awake in bed during the crime of the previous night, got up and related to some persons living in the same house how her father hail some home, and after quarrelling with her mother had shot the latter, and then, after walking up and down the room for some time, had killed himself. The child had slept till the morning, with the two corpses lying on the ground by her bedside. A little boy fifteen months old was sleep:ng in the same room. TEE OAKS COLLIERY EXPLOSION of clearing the ill-fated colliery is progressing somewhat slowly. The explorers last week brought out two horses and a donkey, but no bodies have been found. There are more than 300 bodies still entombed in the mine, and an application has been made to the Barnsley Burial Board to have them interred, when recovered, in the Barnsley Cemetery, and as to the terms they may be interred on. The colliery is in the parish of Ardsley, a village about two miles from Barnsley, but the interments cannot be made in that churchyard, as it is too small to allow of such a great number of bodies being laid there. Several times during the explorations this week the men have had to retreat to the mouth of the pit in consequence of the gas becoming too strong for them; and one man was overpowered, but was rescued by his comrades.  —The work
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1868-01-11 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

DICKENS' READINGS IN NEW YORK.— The New York Tribune of the 21st ultimo says:—  With the morning reading to be given this day, Mr. Dickens takes leave of New Ywk for the present, to return, we hope, before long and renew the triumph of the last, two weeks. The completeness of that triumph is not to be questioned, and it has been gained by the pure force of genius, without resort to artifice or clap-trap. Mr. Dickenr came among us quietly and unostentatiously ; he has kept himself since his arrival in a marked seclusion and has applied himself to his business of reading with as much devotion as if he were just starting out in life, with his own fortune and that of a large funnily of orphan. brothers and sisters dependent on his exertions. We think that in all this Mr. Dickens has showed good taste and tact, and be has succeeded in concentrating public attention upon his reading rather than upon himself, which is, no douht, exactly what he wished to do. As for what we cannot help thinking the youthful indiscretion of his American Notes," we dare say he has been himself a little surprised to find how entirely it is forgotten and forgiven, and how unchanged is our old admiration for the genius and humanity displayed on every page of his writings. We trust that his visit may prove profitable and pleasant to the end, and that no engagement at home nmy seem so pressing as to prevent his remaining with us till every one of our large cities arid towns has had the opportunity of listening to his readings.  SUICIDE TFIROUGH Love !—Mr. James Chaitie, a respectable gentleman, 23 years of age, committed suicide in Dalkey on Saturday evening, at the residence of Surgeon Lyons, of whose relative, a Miss Norris, he was a disappointed suitor. He walked into the room where the young lady and her mother were sitting, and in a few minutes was seen to apply a phial to his lips and mutter something about an easy death. Mrs. Norris dashed the phial from his hands, but he had drained its contents before she could prevent him. He died shortly afterwards. A second phial was found in his pocket, together with a pocketbook, on a leaf of which the following was written : Mother, I go to-night. I hope you will conform with the wishes which I have laid down in my letter. Do not think I am mad. I am broken-hearted. Mrs. Lawlor (with whom the deceased lodged in Dublin) will, I suppose, when she hears of my death, send you my letter, and, ass dying re quest, I hope you will do as I ask you.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1868-02-29 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

SUICIDES BY CHILDREN.  On Monday night Dr. Lankester held an inquest at the Empress of Russia Tavern, Owen's-row, Islington, London, upon the body of a boy named Victor Verbeyst, age I thirteen years, who came to his death by hanging. Mr. Joseph Verbeyet, the father of the deceased, said he was a Belgian, and had been in London only a few years. His son was a very good boy, and on Wednesday last was working by his side at his business of a pocket-book maker. He impure,' of him when he should be allowed to go to school again, to which witness replied as soon as he could spare him. 1 He went out of the workshop, and witness saw no more of him until he was called to open the door of the water closet, wherein he (deceased) was supposed to have fallen asleep. He discovered hint hanging by a cord. He was in a sitting position, quite deal. The cord was fastened to the handle of the door. Deceased had been readinr some of the cheap literature of the day—" The Boys of England," and other si u.i;ar publications—and his (witnesa's) impression was that he had been "experimenting" and had killed himself accidentally. He could never keep his son from the books he had spoken of. He was not very passionate, but slightly so. The C, ironer said he had known many cases where children had been killed through "cop. rlmenting," at banging. Dr. Goddard, who was called to the deceased, nail he tried every proper remedy to restore him, lint without avail. He spoke against the theory of death being the result of an a .cident. The jury returned a verdict of " Suicide while in a state of uusoand mind," supposed through the reading of a certain class of literature.  The Liverpool coroner has held an inquest on the body of a lad named Elkin, between fourteen and fifteen years of age, who, in consequence of having been sharply reproved by his father, had committed suicide by hanging. The youth's habits were fearfully initnoral for one of his years, and he hail several times suffered seriously in health in consequence of his abandoned propensities. Ile had twice enlisted for a soldier, and had been on both occasions 1...1;.;11L ‘,ll by his parents.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1878-11-02 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN PAPERS.  A Troy man has lost a canal boat, and a local paper suggests that some Syracuse girl took it for a slipper. Josh Billings reflects that if a man is on his way to the woods to commit suicide and a bull suddenly gives ckase, the chances are that he will run for his life. When an artist climbs over a fence to get a nearer view of a handsome bull-dog, he must take the chances of sketching the dog, or the dog's ketching him.  "Lunatic fringe is the name given in New York to the fashicn of cropping the hair and letting the ends hang down over the forehead.  A Nebraska paper devoutly "thanks heaven" that at lesst one paper has been found that has "the honest, old-fashioned good sense to say angler," instead of "votary of Terpsichore." It sounds old-fashioned, but—there's something wrong about it yet, we think.  - Happy couples in some - American towns proclaim their approaching nupitals thus :—" With the loving consent of their parents, W. H. and S. T. herewith announce their betrothal." At the close of a concert, says a New York paper, while a young gentleman was struggling with his hat, cane, overcoat, opera-glass, and his young lady's fan, all of which be was trying to retain on his lap, a suspicions-looking black bottle from the overcoat pocket fell on to the floor with a loud thud. "There," he exclaimed to his companion. "1 shall lose my cough medicine." There was presence of mind for you! A Cincinnati journal says in making your choice of a nice young girl for your wife, proceed prayerfully, quietly, calmly, and cohsiderately, to find out her faults and foiblts, likes and dislikes." If he marries the girl beforehand he can get full information, then it is too late. Let him be contented that abets a" nice young girl." The joking at the expense of the large feet of the women of Kentucky is carried on with a ferocity of draggers. tion that is astounding. Here is the latest: A young lady from Truckee, who is visiting in Reno, met with an annoying accident this morniag. In coming out of a store she turned to make a laughing remark, and unthinkingly got her foot sideways in-the doorway, which is only six feet wide. There it stuck, and not until a crowbar had been vigorously used was the foot removed. A New 'York lecturer on chemistry said :—" To Illustrate how elements, that are perfectly harmless in themselves, May become destructive by combination, take the case of a gun and a small boy. What can be more harmless than each of these when alone by Itself? or what can b 3 more dangerous in combination? (Great applause.) A heated lover wrote a letter to his inamorata last week, beginning "Sweatest." She will be a sister to him hereafter— othing more. "
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1878-09-21 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

TORPEDOES IN PORTSMOUTH HARBOUR. Whilst some watermen were fishing in the Portsmouth Harbour, they hooked and brought to the surface some torpedoes, the countermines of which were sunk in close proximity to the floating bridge which plies across the harbour between Portsmouth and Gosport. The Government authorities were communicated with, and a thorough search of the spot was made, the result bieng that several torpedoes and other explosive compounds were brought up. They are supposed to have fallen out of the Bloodhound torpedo-ship, which was sunk by coming foul of the floating-bridge chains recently when going out to take part in some torpedo experiments.  A VICTIM TO SciENcE.—A sad accident occurred lately az the Gymnasium at Prague. Professor Fischer was found poisoned in the physical laboratory. He was only 25 years of age, but a person of the greatest promise, by reason of his great abilities and industry and his devotion to chemistry, All the circumstances connected with him exclude the suspicion of suicide. All that is known of the catastrophe is that, being in the laboratory, he sent a servant to the store-keeper for some sal-ammoniac and some cyanide of potassium. He mixed them and tasted the mixture, saying to the servant, "Science has advanced so far as even to be able to render harmless so dangerous an agent as cyanide of potassium." But he had scarcely tasted the mixture when he was seized with violent pains. He at once told the servant to fetch a physician, but before he came Dr. Fischer was beyond human aid. He was known to entertain the persuasion that cyanide of potassium could be rendered harmless, and the problem of how to accomplish this was a frequent object of his meditations. A memorandum on this theme was found among his papers. Doubtless he fell a victim to a rash experiment. FEMININE LOGlC.—Business-like wife "I'm sure you charge too much for your pictures, my love, beautiful as they are. If you were to ask a quarter the price, you would sell twice as many !" —Punch.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1878-06-01 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

THE TRIUMPH OF VIRTUE OVER VICE. The Pictorial Wm ld tells the following :—" The poor fellow who writes paragraphs for the newspapers and who, in a different way to that described by Thackeray, almost succeeds in living on nothing a year, is the subject of many a good story, in which the ridiculous and the pathetic are curiously blended. One of these characters was blessed by Providence with children to the number of about fourteen (when the tale is above twelve, one or more is of no consequence in a story) and had naturally a rare struggle to keep all these heads above water. Friday arrived, the cruse was exhausted, and the man made one last effort to provide food for his fourteen hungry little ones. He wrote an account of the inquest concerning a horrible murder and suicide, and dropped it into the box of the only newspaper that then paid on Saturday for work done on the previous day. Having thus sowed the good seed he departed, but there came by the devil in the shape of another hanger-on to the skirts of the press, who plucked up the good seed—that is, he hooked up the M.S. with the aid of a bent wire. The startling paragraph was very soon copied, and the copy, with the writer's name at the foot, dropped into the same box. In the morning came the troubled father to draw the half-crown that was to keep the wolf from the door until the Monday; but he was met with the answer that Mr. So-and-So had contributed that paragraph and had been paid for it. Away he rushed to the thief and roundly accused him of the deed, but the rascal maintained that he was present at the inquest, but in the back-ground. Nothing of the kind, cried the outraged father; 'there was no inquest at all; I invented it myself because I was so infernally hard-up.' fableau—Triumph of virtue over vice. You pay your money; and as to which is virtue and which vice, it is purely a matter of choice."  A " HARD " a man guilty of theft when he." steels" his breast ?—Judv.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1878-07-06 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

SUICIDE AT WOLLASTON.—On Monday morning it was discovered that William Riley, manager of time necessary for the accomplishment cf this a grocer's shop at Wollaston, had committed object would have to be reckoned by years. suicide. rite housekeeper, Niss Standish,"left Others again contend that importation has no the house on Sunday morning, Riley being then in connection at all with the prevalence of pleuro- it, and when she returned in the evening she pneumonia and the foot-and-mouth disease, and could not gain admission. Attributing this to that these maladies are and have been domesti- the absence of deceased, she obtained shelter elsecated amongst us Again it is urged that, where, and no steps were taken till Monday mornassuming the diseases in question to be intro- ing when an entrance was effected. Some little duced by importation, there is the grave doubt time after Miss Standish went down into the whether the slaughter of cattle at thelport of cellar, and there found Riley hanging stiff and disembarkation is an adequate prevention cold. He had stood on a cheese box to effect his against the dissemination of contagion. It is purpose; but after he was suspended it is believed contended that in order to effect the object in be made some effort to release himself again. view, it would not be sufficient to prevent live The affair caused great emcitement in the neighforeig cattle from mixing our own ; and bourhood. Deceased was about twenty-five years that hides, offtl, and dead meat hould also Of age, and the business he managed belonged to F Mr. Corvesor, of Dudley. An inquest was held he excluded, nor is it impossible that the germs on Tuesday, and resulted Ii a verdict of " Suicide of disease Might be introduced in other and in a state of temporary insanity." Deceased, it still more insidi appears, eus ways. The whole question ane ein rre n nicatueof nt a 29 to the olgin arid dis3eminatien of these c erepaos nertsohaeve b, as ding l A.h i m s scourges is exceedingly obscure, hut the debates tai w his employer wished it to be stated that his have been the means of making public some accounts were perfectly correct. useful information which will, it is hoped, be of No Linde—At the Worcestershire Midsummer value in the future efforts that may be made to Quarter Sessions, on Tuesday, the Grand Jury preserve the food of the people, an object ignored the bill against William Childs, charged essential to both town and country alike, wint- with towl stealieg at Chaddesley CorbJtt ever may be their divergence of view on the
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1878-08-24 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

JOCULAR CUTTINGS FROM AMERICAN  PAPERS.  Missionary societies, by means of the phonograph, tan have sermons canned and sent to the Cannibal Islands. The natives can't eat the sermons, and therefore have the taoral and religious without the physical part of the Missionary. Josh Billings says, "I like the statoos better'n I do the picterg. I kin go all round the statoos, but I kin only see one side of the picters."  It is not a significant sign of the frivolity of the times that in Petaluma the other day two funerals were adjourned half an hour to see a circus procession pass? A Connecticut woman was appointed constable the Other day, and the first thing she said was " Now I shall eatch a man." It is related that a western tourist, to whom an Italian monk was recently showing a consecrated lamp, Which had never gone out during five centuries, gave the flame a decided puff, and remarked with cool complacency, Well, 1 guess its out now," When a woman commits suicide in New York, the reporters perpetrate head-lines about "A beautiful woman forcing the portals of the unknown world." At St. Louis, when a high-pressure steamer, crowded with passengers, burst, it is called "elevating the assumes." As the sun in all its splendour was peeping over the *astern hillsoksays a Yarkee paper, a newly-married man exelaimed, Tne glory of the world is rising " His wife, who happened to be getting up at that moment, taking the compliment to herself, simpered out, "What would you Bay, clear, if I had my silk gown on?" A Missouri paper, in giving an account of the funeral of a little boy who was killed by being run over by a railroad train, says :—" The funeral ceremonies were Solemn and impressive, and well calculated to warn children of the danger of playing about railroads A Kentucky steam-packet captain, while dilating .011 the excellence of his craft, says "She trots off like a horse—all boiler—full pressure—it; hard work to hold her In at the wharves and landing. I could run her up a cataTract She draws eight inches of water—goes at three knots a minute, and jumps all the snags and sandbanks." Yonkers had a fourth Of July orator, who said: "Mad while the heart of the nation continues to throb, While the hollyhock of liboarft ssinaulates its fragrance over the acia of our domain, while Thegratitilde.fif, tW,lffes-'bern tons of soil—l mean sons of toil—recalls the heroism of those who bought and fled—excuse me, I should have said taught and bled—for us, so long will we cherish the noble &welly bequeathed to us by our bat-riotic posterity  THE SOCIAL STATUS Or A
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1878-09-14 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

NAILERS' RELIEF CONCERTS.-Mr. Walter Bassano, J.P., presided at the first of a series of concerts given in the Reddal Hill Schools to augment a relief fund for the millers of the district who are on strike. 'The performers were lady and gentlemen amateurs of the neighbourhood. In some remarks at the commencement of the proceedings the Chairman expressed his sympathy with the nailers so far as their suffering was concerned, and denied that the help that these concerts were to afford was intended to encourage them to continue the strike. It was help just in the sense that one would thrt w a rope to a drowning man who had attempted to commit suicide. He considered the struggle a helpless one, for the nailers were not fighting against a combination of masters, but bad trade. He would not say a word as to the justice of the nailers dam nd, lut he thought they made a mistake in preferring it just now, and believed they had ascribed things to the masters which were unfounded. He was a coalmaster himself, and knew that it would be just as reaonable for the colliers to strike now as for the nailers, but he also . knew the masters could give them no more money. He could answer for himself that he never lost so much money in his life as he had during the last two years, and he could not afford to lose much more. His own feeling was that the strike was a grand mistake, and that the nailera had far better take " half a loaf than no bread." In further remarks Mr. Bassano disclaimed any wish to make political capital out of the relief movement, and alsc said he did not believe the masters would grant an increase if the strike continued from now till Christmas.
The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle. — 1878-11-30 (Stourbridge, West Midlands, England)

DISORDERLY AND REFUSING TO QUIT.—At the Pollee Court, on Monday, before Messrs. J. Ho'croft, and G. K. Harrison, Squire Knight, a butty collier, was charged with being disorderly and refusing to quit the Old Crown Inn, Brettell Lane, on the 18th inst. Mr. Skolding. the landlord, said the defendant was very disorderly and refused to quit when requested. He had to send for the police to turn him out. Defendant pleaded guilty and he was fined 108 and costs; in default fourteen days' imprisonment. CAUTION TO WielloNefts.—William Holt, wagoner, to Messrs. Webb, of Wordsley, was charged with riding on the wagon without reins. Police-constable Eden proved the case. The defence was that his feet were very sore Defendant was fined 28 6d and costs; in default fourteen days. C HARGI 01 ATTEMPTING TO COMMIT SUlClDE.—Franeia 'Phillips was charged with attempting to commit suicide by drowning, on the 22nd inst. Benjamin Perry said that he was standing by the canal side at the locks when a person said that a man had jumped into the canal. Several of them went in the direction and succeeded in getting him who hiwmouwL The defence was that he lived with a as always having vermin in the house He complained to him about it and be struck him and he summoned him up at the Pollee Court for an assault and he paid 78 costs. Since that time his nephew had treated him badly. The Magistrates said that was no reason for attempting to commit suicide. .Defendant said he had no friends in the world but a sister who was unable to assist him. The Magistrates ordered the defendant to be sent to the Union. Superintendent Woollaston said that he would send an officer with the man. Defendant said he should be very glad to go. SCHOOL BOARD PROSECUTIoNS.—A number• of persons were summoned by Inspector Breton, for neglecting to I send their children to school, and were fined 6s each to Include cots. ()