Swansea and Glamorgan Herald, and South Wales Free Press. — 1866-12-26 (Swansea, West Glamorgan, Wales)

STRANGE CASE OF SUICIDE AT MOUNTAIN ASH. VERDICT OF PELO DE SE BY TIIE JURY.  A case of suicide under peculiar circumstances has jure been brought to light at Mnentain Mir by the !wilding of ftn inquest by the deputy coroner, T. Williams, Esq., on Tuesday last, at the Navigation Hotel. The jury having viewed the body of the deceased, William Vaughan Wiltshire. evidence was taken of which we give the following as a summary. The deemsed was a collier. and wall married to his wife, Mary Anne, more than nine years ago; three I children were th • frnit of their union. Four years 11 last April the deceased emigrated to America, taking his wife and family away with him; hut it does not appear II they lived very happily there; on the contrary, she says he threatened to murder her, and that was the reason of their return more than two years ego. He was still I restless in the mother country, and with a hankering after cousin Jonathan, and, perhat s, occasionally mental visions of the beauty of Minersville, North America, he determined to emierate again, but this time left his wife and children behind him. Weeks and months flew by, and Mrs Wiltshire heard nothing of her quondam spouse. Whether he had perished amid the dying embers of the American civil war, or had vanished into the geeret conclaves of red-hot Fenianism, she knew not. One thing was certain, he might as well have been an Egyptian mummy as far as regarded the money he ought to have cent to suriport her; and Mrs Wiltshire, thinking—es we are afraid more than one Welsh matron would think—that William Vaughan had, by a neglect of his paternal obligations, forfeited his conjugal rights, looked about her for another help-meet, and found him in the person ofJohn Jenkins, a labourer to whom she was married, so she says. But one day, the 17th of November, the missing husband timed up, and walking straight to Na, 7, Australia-row, he must have been slightly surprised (not gratified surely) to find that the late Mrs Wiltshire had been safely delivered of an infant only ten days bef ire, and both mother and child were doing well. But 'what was elm news to him, the papa of the last little stranger had been gine away for some seven or eight months, an that Mr Wiltshire had not even the chance of wreaking his vengeance upon the head of Jenkins, the man who had supplanted him in his wife's affections. 'Not appearing in the least discomposed when he saw his wife, he began to look out for work, and visited his brother at Sirhowy on two occasions. He returned on the Nth met the second time, and brought with him three pennyworth of laudanum from Mr Evans, chemist, of Triflerear; and on arriving at Mountain Ash he purchased a like quantity of Mr Jones and Mr Thomas, chemists. Deceased took the contents of the three bottles when he mix,el some rum and beer, a rather different potion, for his wife. He wanted her to go upstairs, but she refused, saying the room was too damp. Ultimately, however, she cnasented. :Ind he soon fell into a drowsy state. She commenced shaking him, and in so doing one of the laudanum bottles railed from under his heed. This aroused her supicion that he bad poisoned himself, and she at once called up her father and mother, and the doctor was sent for. Being then Sunday morning Mr Brawn went down to see the deceased, who was then in a state of stupor from the effects of a narcotic. The stomach pump was called into requisition, and there was no doubt that, as he afterwards admitted, deceased had taken a large dose of laudanum. The next day he seemed better, but complained of pain in the site, pleurisy, for which he was treated ; and at intervais. when cumeione. he stated that he had taken the poison from distrese of mind. During the week he grew worse, and died a week after he took it. Apes! »torte's revealed inflammation of the lungs and bowels, and an effusion of serum on the brain, which conjointly, were sufficient to cause death. The brother of deceased said he was low spirited, and vexed, and didn't know what to do with himself. But there was nothing strange in his manner, and none of the family had exhibited symptoms of mental derangement before. The deceased was a young man, only 32 years of age. The Coroner strongly censured the wife for her unfaithfulness, and after same deliberation the jury returned a verdict offele de se, or self-murder.