An Extraordinary Suicide.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 143, 18 June 1887, Page 3 (Supplement)

An Extraordinary Suicide.

A workman and his wife, named Ardouin, living in the Avenue. Parmenticr, Paris, recently lost one of their children (a little girl of six) with croup. Her brother, eight years of ago, on his return from school, seeing the little girl extended lifeless on the bed, was greatly affected. For a long time he was quite inconsolable, and his parents were obliged to remove him to an adjoining room and soothe him with kind attentions ere the} ,, could bring the poor child to himself. On the following morning the boy asked to be allowed to see his sister once more for the last time. He was taken into the death chamber, went softly up to the bed, and, imprinting a kiss on the face of the little corpse, said, "We shall soon meet again, dear sister." The child returned to his room, and his parents, busy with preparations for the- funeral, lost sight of him for some moments. His mother, going to the- room an hour afterwards, found him hanging from the window, quite dead. The child had tied a towel to the handle of the window, had climbed on a bench, and then, passing the towel round his neck, had kicked the bench aside. Not a cry or groan had There can be no doubt that the poor child's mind was affected by the. shock of his little sister's death, but the resolution he. displayed and the manner in which he carried out his fatal determination were extraordinary for a boy of such a tender age. ;