SYDNEY BRIDGE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 245, 17 October 1933, Page 5

SYDNEY BRIDGE.

FATAL FASCINATION. TWO REMARKABLE CASES. BRII.IiIANT STUDENT'S END. (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, October 12. One day last week a man was seen to fall from the bridge into the harbour; and his body, still floating, was dragged out of the water. Within ten minutes of his rescue he was under the care of doctors in the Sydney Hospital. He regained consciousness, muttered freely that they should let him die, and then died. He was identified as John Fraser Cocks, aged 23, son of a well-known Congregational clergyman, the late Kev. N. J. Cocks; and his history and the story of his end threw a tragic light upon the fascination that the great bridge has seemed to exercise over many of its victims. Young Cocks eeemed. to the casual observer, to have everything that life can offer within his grasp. He was tall and good looking; he had ample money in his own right, a fine home with his mother and sisters at North Sydney, and a good jot). He had inherited much of the intellectual ability of his father, and he was articled to a well-known legal firm, and at the University where he was working to complete his law degree, he had proved himself a brilliant student. Yet somewhere in his "makeup" there was a weakness on which the appeal of the great bridge seems to have acted with β-uch overwhelming force that under its influence he flung life iteelf away. The Impulse to Plunge. It is said, and probably with truth, that after the bridge was completed and Cocks began to travel over it to the citv every day, he often mentioned to friends the desire that so many people feel when looking down from a height— the longing or at least the impulse to plunge oneself into the depths below. At this time he was. studying hard, and no doubt tho strain upon his nerves

rendered him more impressionable than he otherwise might have been to this strange fascination. Over a year ago, he suddenly decided that he must have a change of scene; and writing a brief note to his mother and sisters, he left Sydney. He did not tell them where he was going and after a time they reported his disappearance to the police. It was suspected that he had committed suicide; and he did not seem to have realised the anxiety that his- absence and his silence must have caused. But after a few months he was back again at home "bronzed and happy." He told his mother that he had" been overwhelmed by fits of depression and despondency, and that he had felt that he had needed a cKange of environment if he were not to become a victim of melancholia. So he had made hie way to North Queenslands with only a few shillings in his pocket, and there, galloping over the great plains and rounding up cattle, he had regained health and strength and courage to face life again.

What is the Explanation? So he came back to home and office and his studies. But the strain upon his nerves began to tell once more, and in a few weeks "the lure of the bridge" reasserted itself with irresistible power. No one saw the consummation of the tragedy, and nothing could be learned from the shattered body floating in the water with only a few sparks of life still painfully flickering. What is one to make of this strange tale? The conventional explanation of "suicide" only throws the difficulty one stage further back. Why the impulse toward self-destruction? Does it help matters much to say that the boy's nerves had given way under stress of continuous over-work, and that his faculties were no longer under his own control ? Wealthy Girl's Escape. Here is another bridge tragedy which seems in some ways even more inexplicable. On September 8 last year Jean Boulton, 17 years old, pretty, welldressed, left her luxurious home in the suburbs to go shopping in the city. Seemingly she had not a care in the world; her widowed mother is wealthy, they have their motor car, the girl herself has money in her own right, and incidentally she was carrying more than £5 in her bag. At that moment no shadow of coining disaster could have crossed her path. But to-day she has no recollection of anything that hap-

pened from the moment when she left her home till she woke up 48 hours later in Sydney Hospital.

Within an hour after she had gone a man coming on to the bridge saw the girl climb the railing, balance herself upon it for a moment, and then plunge downward. The passer-by gave the alarm, the girl was dragged from the water and rushed to the hospital. Her left arm and side were badly crushed and swollen, both eyes were blackened, her face was twisted and half paralysed. But she lived, and after a prolonged fight her natural strength and buoyancy and the medical and surgical skill that was lavished upon her have brought her through. Her left side is still partly paralysed, her left arcn is supported by a splint, and one of her eyelids droops slightly, but none of these defects, will be permanent, and she is now well on the way toward complete recovery.

Remembers Nothing. But she remembers nothing of what happened on September 8 last year after she left her home. To prevent any shock they told her, when she regained consciousness, that she had been run down by a motor car. But even to-day she can recall nothing of the tragedy or the events that led up to it. The medical experts say that she is suffering from amnesia, which only means forgetfulness, and they add that when she fell or leapt from the bridge she was reallv in a sort of somnambulic trance and entirely unconscious of her own movements and surroundings. But, again, why? It is a curious and significant fact that part of the answer, in her case, recalls the tragic end of John Fraser Cocks. Like him, she was a university student; though so young she had already shown remarkable brilliancy, especially in chemistry, and she was at that time preparing for an examination which, her friends knew, was causing her a great deal of mental preoccupation and worry.

Are we to infer that, in her case, too. the heavy strain of continuous study had tended to weaken the mysterious co-ordination by which our mental and physical processes are interlocked, so loiig as we remain sane and consciously responsible for our actions? Or shall we fall back upon the explanation that would certainly have satisfied most men two or three centuries ago, and think of the great bridge, and all such towerin" structures, as ravening monsters luring men and women insidiously to their doom? 1