WIFE COMMITS SUICIDE

Gisborne Times, Volume LX, Issue 9722, 4 June 1924, Page 5

WIFE COMMITS SUICIDE

, . ——323* HAD TO LIVE APART

EFFECT OF HOUSE SHORTAGE

Attributed indirectly to the general housing shortage, tlie death of Airs Edith Robinson, aged 37, whose body was found in the Thames at Putney, disclosed that she and her children had to live apart from her husband. At the inquest the husband, a housepainter, of Pontypridd, told the coroner that- ho resided with his wife and two children at Bargoed until he had to go to Pontypridd to work. They could not find rooms at Pontypridd, he added, and they to live apart. His wife told him that she was “fed up” with things, and she had arranged to take a. situation in London and put the children into a home until they could get rooms together. She left with the two children and went to London. > Miss Smith, of Drummond Street. Euston Road, stated that Airs Robinson and the two children came to her and asked to he put up for the night. The following morning the woman went out, leaving the children, and did not return. On the label of a parcel was written: “1 have come to •the bitter end, my only hope is in the river.” 'The coroner observed that the case was an illustration of the tragic results of the terrible scarcity of accommodation for the working classes. In many cases they were unable to go to other towns to take work because they could not get accommodation. Sometimes, as in this case, the in an had to go and take up work and live separated from his family, an unnatural and unhappy state of existence. Ho recorded a verdict of suicide while of unsound mind.”