DISCORD OF DEATH

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 146, 17 March 1934, Page 18

DISCORD OF DEATH

Husband’s Delusion

“You have played a heavy symphony on the strings of a man’s soul, and the harmony is about to be resolved on the discord of death.” This was a passage in a remarkable farewell letter left to his wife by Charles Arthur Hunnisett, aged 25, an unemployed electrician, who hanged himself at his home in Finstock Road, Kensington, W. At the inquest at Paddington Gertrude Hunnisett said her husband had been depressed because he wms out of work. -It was his ambition to make a name with his violin. The Coroner (Mr. Ingleby Oddie): He seems to have thought that you had turned against him. Is there any truth in that?—None whatever.

Mrs. Hunnisett said her husband became violent and behaved abnormally. On November 29 he tried to strangle her in bed and asked her if she loved him. On December 31, being scared of him she locked herself in her mother’s room, but he battered the door in. Afterwards he kissed her and said good-bye. She was afraid and took a room for the night. Fred Camplin, brother of Mrs. Hunnisett, said that his sister had not given Hunnisett any cause for jealousy. Mr. Oddie said that, judging by the letter, Hunnisett was very intelligent, but obviously his mind had given way. Finally he became jealous of his wife without any reason. In the letter he spoke of his love for his wife, but showed that he thought she had spurned him lately. The letter went on: “I am on the verge of a long journey. I am going home and yet I expect I shall have io answer for taking my life. What will my punishment be? God must realise that my love is too great. He gave me my brain, my body, my thoughts, my capacity for love. Then He must realise than I cannot bear this life any longer. “If my time were not come I could try a thousand times to take my life and not succeed. Whatever I do it will be because He has permitted me to find rest. I don’t blame you. You are no more responsible for your nature than I am. For every hour’s happiness in this life we get about 24 hours’ misery. You were my only happiness. My head is bursting, and my heart is cold.” Mr. Oddie said Mrs Hunnisett had nothing to reproach herself with. He recorded a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind.