AT SUICIDE POINT.

Grey River Argus, 24 September 1928, Page 7

AT SUICIDE POINT.

GREAT SYDNEY SEA CLIFF PLACE OF MANY DEATHS Grim sport is suicide point ”at Googee Beach, Here it is. that many people have ended their lives by flinging themselves ovL'r the 150 feet precipice to the jagged rocks below. The Gap and this place vie with each other in their sinister record. Few more interesting victims has the spot claimed, however, than Mr Hyman Goldstein, member of the State Lelisljativve Assembly ,eity business man, and eldermaa. fur many ypars at Randwick and one time Mayor of the municipality and prominent Pew. He was a widely known and greatly respected citizen. Mr Goldstein had suffered greatly from “nerves” due ta his multitude of activities and gradually his health began to ; fail. Sleepless, restless, nights added to his trouble. On Sunday last his doctor called upon him in the afternoon "and demanded thjjt he should take a long rest, and should completely disassociate himself from his business, governmental, and municipal interests. Shortly after mid-night on Monday morning one off his two sons went to his father’s room und sat on the bed chatting with him, Mr Goldstein appeared to have improved a little and seemed brighter and cheerier the son asked him how he felt, and expressed the hope that his nerves would allow him some rest. After chatting for about 10 minus’s .he IMt the room. The next morning the family arose to find Mr Goldstein’s bed empty. The polico were informed but there was no trace of the missing citizen until tw’O young constables found .his body hor ribly injured, lying below “.suicide point’’ which is practically opposite 'the fine homo of the deceased. The spot has been responsible for many tragedies. Loth nr.’n and women have flung thi mselves from the overhanging brow of the cliff on to th ©jagged. spray-swept rocks below. The police have always had th-? greatest difficulty in recovering the bodjes for, .after making the perilous journey round the face and down to the spot below ‘suicide pejint” it is impossible because of the conformation of the cliffs, to hoist the body to the tup with ropes. Fisherman are summoned, and they row around to the headland and warily—it is a highly dangerous proceeding —row in as c.ose to the precipice as possible. A false move would mean that they Mnd their boat would be smashed to fragments by the great rollers that continuously beat and pulse at th»- bottom of thie cliff. A rope is flung ashore and to this the body is fastentn and then towed to the beach. Ou Monday when Mr Goldstein’s body was recovered, a crowd of owr 1000 people, hearing of hs tragic death had gathered on the beach. They bared their heads as the body wa q carried through till? surf and across the strand. So far as tfye records show only onperson has ever survived the ordeal of a plunge over ‘ i suicide point ’ ’ ai.d doctors claim that in many instances death must occur through shock before the body strikes the rocks. The one escape from death was a man who jumped over, but not at the right point, and landed on a ledge about 10 feet below. He was bruised and lacerated by ‘ his fall, but otherwise unscratched. The terror of his ex perience, however, in that short plunge was sufficient to make him swear never to atfl-mpt suicide again. He .said that the sensation, the awful mental agony, was utterly indescribable.

A somewhat similar happening, though more sinister, was reported from the Gap on one occasicfn. A woman who was later convicted of the murder of another woman was accused by a boy —the dead woman’s son—with having taken him to the Gap and having induced him to see how far he could throw stones into the water. Whilst inti.'nt upon flinging the sto’nes over he stated that he was given a and over he went. H o landed on a ledge only a few feet, below the- brow of the Gap and wjas unharmed.