The Potteries Examiner : — 1878-09-28 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

PAINFUL SUICIDE AT NEWCASTLE.  On Tuesday morning the people of Newcastle were st irticd with the rumour that the wife of Mr. Robert Rates, tailor and draper, High.st.' Ind committed suicide during the night. She cut her throat with a razor in the bedroom, inflicting a terrible gash, and although medical aid was at once procured, the unfortunate la,ly died immediately after her tragic act. She bad been in ill-health and in very low spirits, and these painful facts furnish the clue to the carve of the rash deed. The greatest possible feeling of s) mpathy is entertained for Mr. Bates, who has a family of five children.  In the evening an inquest was held at the Town Hall, before Mr. J. Knight, borough coroner.—Mr. Bates was the first to give evidence, and it was a terrible ordeal for him. He said his deceased wife's name was Annie Bates' and she was thirty-seven years old. The previous night his wife went to bed about nine o'clock, and be followed her about ten o'clock. When he got into the room his wife was asleep, but she woke upend spoke to him. When he went to bed she fell asleep. About one o'clock in the morning she awoke, and got out of bed, and began pacing about the room. She asked him if she could have some citrate of magnesia. He told her there was some in his wardrobe, and she could get his keys and procare some magnesia for herself. She got some, and told him that it had done hzr a deal of good. She continued to pace about the room; and e asked her to get into bed again, but she said she hould like to have some more magnesia. At that time she stood looking at herself in the glass, and he heard a gurgling sound which alarmed him. He sprang out of bed and saw that his wife was in the act of cutting her throat with a razor, which she must have got from the wardrobe. Ile immediately lifted her to the bed, and called Mrs. Bloom, a servant in the house, who came to render assistance. His wife said to him, "Don't leave me, I am going to die." He ran off for Doctors Edwards and Yates, but when he got baek his wife was dead.  Bloore gave evidense to the effect that she was called up about two o'clock that morning by Mr. Bates, and on going to their bedroom she found Mr.o. Bates bleeding very much from a wound in the throat. She was saturated with blood. She got hold of Mrs. Bates as she lay on the bed, and deceased remarked, "I did not think it was so but as this, or I should not have done it." Witness was unable to hold deceased down on the bed; awl she got up, went to the looking.glass, and stood looking at herself. She said, "I hope God will forgive me, and that you will forgive me, Mrs. Bloore." She succeeded in getting Mrs. Bates bask into bed, and deceased then said, " Tne last struggle looser," after which she died in a few minutes. Dr. Edwards gave evidence, and said that Mrs. Bates had not been well in health, and bad been in an unsound state of mini. She had been in IA private asylum for three months, and had been at home three months since. She appeared better since her return. The jury returned a ver iict that deceased had committed suicide while in an unsound state of mind.