DROWNED HIMSELF.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 209, 3 September 1919, Page 7

DROWNED HIMSELF.

INQUEST ON H. H. MABSHAIX.

Suicide by drowning was hue fii-ding ot j the Coroner, Mr. J. E. Wilson, JUL,.at the inquest over the body of Herbert J Harold Marshall, who was found _, drowned in the Parnell Baths early yes- j terdav morning. ' Vrt'lmr Pearson Friend said he had j last seen .Marshall on Friday ait the entrance to the Auckland Club. He had l acted peculiarly then, and quite often of late witness considered he was j scarcely responsible for this action,. When j he saw ihim last Marshal was. rather . excited. Yesterday morning witness re- ; fceived a letter from the dead man, ■ which had evidently been thrown over the gate and was picked up by the milk- . man in the morning. In this epistle , Marshall indicated that he. •was going to , take hie own life, and asked' Friend to look after his wife. The man who found the body floating half-submerged in the middle of the hatha was George Henry Comes,, a Customs officer, who was going down with a friend for a morning swim ju3t alter seven o'clock. About a hundred yards from the baths an earlier swimmer told thorn there was a coat and hat on the fence near the top of the stepa, but ■he had seen nothing of any man. When Conies and his friend came to the ga>r- ■ ments they looked over the face of the water and caw the body out in the middle. There was a bruise on one eye. i Probably one of the aetu.il eircumIstances that influenced the suicide was told by Reginald Joseph White, Austra- j 'lasi.ih manager for the Guardian Asauri ante Co., Ltd., -of which deceased was j i Auckland manager. Witness said he i had recently come to XJew Zealand for the purpose of making a general ins-pec-tion, but one of his reasons -was to take ! particular notice of the Auckland branch, a.s a whisper had reached him that tilings were, not quite as they might be. A* a matter of fact on Thursday j last, September 2S. ho had suspended j Marshall, who understood that he was not likely to regain employment with the company. Marshall was an excitable man, but he took the suspension quite calmly. / There was some discussion of the pers'cnal "va.brts of Marshall, and a wound on the inner side of the left eye caused i some comment. It was merely a superficial wound, but nothing was known aci curatory as to how it came to be there. j Sergeant Parsons and Constable Drumi'mond, of Parnell, gave evidence. ■ I The coroner returned a verdict of sui- > cide by drowning, but was mot .prepared -to discuss the mental condition of deleeased.