SUICIDES.—A person named Wheeler, a tailor, of Portugal Street, Lincoln's
Inn Fields, formerly in most respectable business, banged himself at the Rose and Crown, Lower Thames Street, on Sunday ,night. A long series of pecuniary misfortunes and disappointments led him to make an attempt at suicide about three months ago. He .has left a family of seven children in utter want, and a wife far ad.. vaned in pregnancy.
A in named Chant, son of Mr. Chant, a stockbroker, shot him-
self, n Bishopsg.ate, on Saturday evening. He was found by the maid- servant, sitting in the water-closet, quite dead. A surgeon was ex- amined before the Inquest Jury. In any other than a case of this nature, it would be amusing to listen to the admirable hesitation with which the opinions of the learned gentleman are announced- " Mr. Burrowes, a surgeon, stated that on being called in, he found the de- ceased is the state described by the last witness [the maid-servant). His head .was leaning against the wall, and he was quite dead. There was a wound on the right temple, as if a ball had entered; also the bone of the left temple was fractured, as though the ball had passed up to it, but had not made its exit. f A percussion-pistol was lying. on the seat, that had not been discharged : at a little distance, was another pistol, with which it is probable he had committed the act."
Admirably precise ! it is probable, that the young man shot himself with the pistol that had been discharged, and not with that which was still loaded !
On Sunday, a middle-aged man, named Samuel Venables, formerly a Lieutenant in the Navy, hanged himself, in his lodgings in Penning. ton Street, St. George's-in-the-East. From the statement of his sister at the Coroner's Inquest, it appears that the deceased possessed, or thought he possessed, a claim to the estate and title of Vernon, supe- rior to those of the present possessor. He also claimed kin with the Archbishop of York ; which, however, had not been admitted, any more than his claim to the earldom.
On Tuesday evening, a French gentleman, after drinking a bottle of champagne in the dinner-room at the Grasshopper Hotel, Gracechurch Street, abruptly produced pistols, and expressed a determination to shoot himself. Mr. Hone was out, but his son-in-law, Mr. Hemsley, entered the dining-room, and seized the arm of the unhappy man, at the moment be discharged one of the pistols into his throat. It was loaded with two balls ; which blew off his under jaw, passed through the orbit of his left eye, and lodged in the ceiling above the box in which be sat. Mr. Hemsley narrowly escaped, for one of the balls graied his temple. This desperate effort at self-destruction was effected in the presence of other gentlemen sitting in the room. The miserable man was instantly conveyed to St. Thomas's Hospital in the Borough. There were found upon him forty-three sovereigns, and a letter declaratory of his purpose.
Oa Thursday, Mr. Frederick Murray Hourgan, the publisher of the Sun newspaper, killed himself at the Swan-with-Two-Necks, by cutting his throat with a razor. The unfortunate young man came to the inn about six o'clock on the morning of Wednesday ; he said he had just arrived by the mail from Brighton, and that he was desirous of retiring to rest. He went to bed, where be remained all day. On the following morning, the chambermaid found him reclining his head over a waehhand basin, which stood on a table, with a dreadful gash in his throat, and his face so dyed in blood, that not a feature was distinguish- able. A bloody razor was firmly grasped in his right hand, and the head was nearly severed from the 'body, so that be must have died in- stantly. No probable cause was assigned for the act. Mr. Young, editor of the Sun, gave the unfortunate man a high character for steadiness and honesty.
On Sunday morning, a young woman, the daughter of a beer-seller at Kin's Cross, drank about nine pennyworth of laudanum. A surgeon, of Edmund Street, used the stomach-pump, but without effect. The muse of her suicide was, that she had been compelled to go to service. She had tried to poison herself every day of the previous week, but failed front taking too small quantities.
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