SENSATION OF HANGING.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 211, 11 September 1897, Page 4 (Supplement)

SENSATION OF HANGING.

A curious insurance ease is to be tried in the Civil Law Courts of the Siene. A gentleman named Henri Martin, aged 33, a Doctor of Laws, decorated with the third class of the Order of Public Instruction, and chief editor of the "Oourrier de Lyon," an important provincial paper, ' was found some weeks ago hanged in his residence, 8, Rue flu Mulct, at Lyons. Bound his neck was a dog collar, to which was attached a cord depending from a hook just fixed over his bed. Did M. Martin commit suicide, or did he not ? This is the question that the three companies with which he had insured his life for 30,000f. are now disputing. If M. Martin hanged himself voluntarily they will win their case. But it has ben proved that for some years he has taken a scientific interest in the whole problem of hanging, and was preparing an article for the "Courrier de Lyon," entitled " Choses Yecues " (" Things Lived") (an evident imitation of Victor Hugo's famous "Choses Vues" —"Things Seen") in which the sensation of hanging, so variously commented on by different authorities in ages past, was to be accurately described. It is thought that at the. critical moment he was unable to free himself from the fatal dog collar, and was hanged for good and all, without in the least expecting it.