SLOW SUICIDE.

Auckland Star, Volume XXII, Issue 95, 25 April 1891, Page 4 (Supplement)

SLOW SUICIDE.

How Baron Ben Olnyl Smoked Himself to Death.

The most fantastic story told ia that of the strange and slow suicide of the Baron Be 11 Olnyl, at Pesth, in tho year 1875. The baron was supposed to be very wealthy . He had a wife and six children. He los 1 hie money in speculation, but this was not known. He went to Paris, and insured his life for 100,000 guelden each in five companies. Hβ returned to Pesth, and hie habits began to change. He absenbed himself from homo for long periods every day. Tho picture of health, he began to droop and pine away. In ten months he died of what the doctors called galloping consumption. The insurance companies were suspicious, and their detectives unearthed a most wonderful plot. The nobleman was discovered to have hired a small room in a remote and mean portion of the city. It was broken into, and found to be furnished with a comfortable eoftt, a table, two chairs and two chests. In one of these was found a comfortable dreseing-gown, a pair of loose Turkish trousers, a fez, and a dozen long pipes. In the other was found about 200 strong Havana cigars and a half-pound common smoking tobacco. From the wrappers found in the bottom of the chest it would appear that in less than eight months the nobleman had smoked about 3,500 cigars and about 100 pounds of smoking tobacco, having deliberately poisoned himself with nicotine.