The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1890-01-04 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

DREADFUL SUICIDE IN TRANMERE. = POISONED BY CARBOLIC ACID.  Yesterday afternoon an inquest was held at the Traumata Park Hotel, before Mr. Churtoo, district coroner, touching the death of William Waddell, a joiner, who resided in Mill-street, Trimmers. Ellen Lee, a widow with whom the deceased has lodged for Me past seven weeks, said she he was about 39 years of age. He was married, but he and his wife had not got along comfortibly together, and had separated. He was without regular employment, though he has been employed with Mr. Shaw, wheelwright, Tranmere, on the three first days of this week. On Thursday evening he came in about six or seven looking rather wild and excited. He afterwards fell asleep on the sofa, and a pipe he was smoking fell from his month on to the floor. Later, he began to slide off the sofa, and she then told him he had better go to bed. About half-past nine he took his candle, bade them good night, and left the kitchen. As a rule he left the house early, bat on Friday morning it had got 10 o'clock and Wished never heard him move. She knocked at his room door, calling him by name, but there was no answer. She then sent for her danghter-in-law and they wen into the room together. Witness intended shaking him, but when she went to the bed she found him quite cold and dead. In reply to the Coroner the witness said she could not say whether the deceased was in drink when he came home, but when he took his candle to go to bed he staggered and twice fell to the ground. When witness found him in thiginorning she sent for Dr. McNeill and P.C. Cook. The latter found a bottle on a chest of drawers, and took 'possession of it, but she could not say what it had contained. She noticed that he had a bottle in his pocket when he want to bed. _ _  In reply to a juryman the witness said that she had heard deceased say hie wife was as good a woman as ever was tied to & man, but she would not humble to him, and he would not humble to her. Being separated from his wife might have preyed upon his mind, for she had heard him say that as she had not come to live with him this Christmas. she never would live with him another Christmas. He took drink at times.  The Coroner thought from the evidence that the deceased bad been drinking heavily during Thursday. P.C. 78 (Cook) deposed to &tering the bedroom of the deceased on Friday morning, and finding him lying dead in bed. On the chest of drawers, a few feet from the bed, he found the bottle produced. When full it had contained a pint of carbolic acid, and of this about a wineglessfnl had been removed. A pocket knife, with which the bottle bad been opened, and the cork, were lying beside the bottle. Deceased appeared to have drunk the acid from the bottle neck.  Mr. Evans, chemist, 5. Greenway-road, spoke to supplying the deceased with the acid between six and seven on Thursday evening. The deceased stated that he wanted it for disinfecting purposes. The Coroner remarked that the deceased appeared to have taken s big dose of carbolic acid sufficient to kill a good many men. The dose taken would cause immediate insensibility and general paralysis all through the body in less than halfran-bonr, so that it was no wonder he lay as though asleep when the police found him. The jury, without further consideration, returned a verdict to the effect that deceased had oommitted suicide by taking carbolic acid whilst suffering from temporary insanity.