CORONER'S INQUEST.

Otago Witness, Issue 14, 16 August 1851, Page 3

CORONER'S INQUEST.

An inquest was held at the Royal Hotel before Mr. Coroner Williams, on the body of William Underhill, late of Rattray St., Dunedin, Carpenter, who destroyed himself. It appeared from the evidence that the deceased was last seen at 9 o'clock on Tuesday evening, when he appeared rather duller than usual, but not so much as to attract attention. He had been in the habit of getting intoxicated, and on such occasions lying in bed for days, so that his non-appearance at his work in the morning was not heeded ; but his partner having occasion for some tools which he had taken home with him, endeavoured about 12 o'clock at noon to get into the house ; but being unable to make himself heard, he removed a window at the back of the premises, when he saw the deceased suspended from the roof of the building. Assistance was procured,an entrance effected, and the body cut down, but life was extinct, and the corpse quite cold. The deceased seems to have committed the deed in a most determined manner, — tying his legs and hands, and after placing the cord around his neck to have cast himself from off carpenter's bench, apparently by moving a long plank (which was found projecting about two feet over the edge of the bench) until his weight overbalanced it, and thus causing it to act like a drop. No cause for the perpetration of the "dreadful act could be ascertained, the deceased having saved some property, about £70 in cash being found in the house, which was also his own property. Several witnesses deposed to the fact of his being almost deranged when " he took stimulating ' T liqu6rs.~ "He had stated when sober that drink drove him mad, and accounted for it from his having received an injury in the head. So little does it appear that he had meditated the rash act, that he had on the previous night purchased meat for the next day's dinner. The Jury returned a verdict that the deceased destroyed himself whilst laboring under temporary insanity. H e was about 26 years of age, and arrived in this colony by the " Victory " upwards of three years ago. From his papers it is ascertained that he has a brother somewhere in the neighbourhood of Christchurch, in the Canterbury settlement.