Mr. John Sale, formerly a surveyor, and lately in the
employ of Mr. Phipps the builder, committed suicide on the night of Sunday last. The circumstances that transpired at the inquest on the body are , ball of tragic interest. The deceased had on Sunday evening applied for lodgings at the White Hart, 1 Milbank ; and, apparently tired and jaded, retired early, saying that he had an appointment with Mr. Westmacott, of the Vauxhallroad, at eight o'clock next morning. At that hour he was found dead and cold in his bed ; the door bolted inside; on the dressing-table, a composition like grated ginger, with a glass that had contained gin and water ; in his pockets, thirteen pawnbroker's tickets, a new half-inch cord, two phials which had contained laudanam, and the following letter addressed to his wife. "My poor Ann ! I can never hope to be forgiven by you, or that you will remember me in any other light than one that has brought poverty and distress on you and the poor dear children. You have deserved a better fate than what you have had with me ; on have borne our miseries with patience and resignation ; and I hope the Almighty Godwill raise you up a friend in your extremity. The distress I leave you in is, indeed, great, but what can I do ? All our friends are tired out ; and your family will not look at me for what I have brought you to—and the poor, dear girls, what will become of them ?—left without a father and protector, in a wide wicked world! Poor Jane will not forget me !—and the little dear Mary Ann will ask ' where is poor father gone '1 Mr. and Mrs. Leathley, I am afraid, will not look on you, but hope what I have done may not entirely deprive you of their friendship. Would to God I had died before, I should then have lain in the same grave with the poor departed boy. I have never ceased to think of him, poor fellow ; since my misconduct was the means of his death I never could forgive myself; it has always preyed upon my mind, so that I could not settle to anything. Oh God, I have taken the dreadful, the fatal draught; and may the Almighty, in his infinite mercy, forgive me, and receive my soul ! may he protect you and my poor dear children through life, and grant that some benevolent friend may assist you in your affliction. I begin to feel the poison operate. May the Lord receive my soul." The child alluded to had died about nine months ago, entirely through hunger and want of proper nourishment. One of the witnesses declared he had "never in all his life seen a family in greater distress ; to his knowledge they bad sometimes been without food for three days together; the deceased, a most affectionate father and husband, had not been at home since Sunday week, and en observing that his children were without food, he left their presence in the deepest grief and anguish, and the next thing that witness heard of him was that he had poisoned himself." The jury returned a verdict that the deceased poisoned himself, being at the time in a temporary state of derangement, produced by extreme distress. The coroner and jury entered into a subscription for the widow and the two fatherless children.
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