ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CVI, Issue 12550, 11 July 1901, Page 5

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

SUICIDE OF AN AMBASSADOR'S SON. ' United Press Association—By Eiectrio Telegraph—Copyright. BERLIN, July 9. The son of Mr A. D. White, the American Ambassador at Berlin, committed suicide as a- result of illness., FOUND DROWNED. Yesterday morning the body of an elderly woman was found in a pool near "Victoria! Lake. The body was identified as that of Mrs Catherine "Ivennell, who had been living with her married daughter ia Salisbury Street, but had left home the previous day, audi had not. returned. An inquest was held at the Gladstone Hotel yesterday evening, before Mr H. W; Bishop, District 'Coroner, and a jury, of which Mr Thomas Moor was -chosen foreman. Mary Ann Osborne, a married daughter of the deceased, said that her mother had, been living with her for the past five -months in Salisbury Street. She last saw her about three o'clock on Tuesday after? noon,, when she said she was going out for a walk. She did not return, and witness, becoming alarmed, made inquiries for her mother amongst their friends, without result. Yesterday morning she went to search in the Park, where the deceased had been in the habit of walking, and while she was close by Victoria Lake, about 9.20 a.m., some boys, called out that there was a dead person in a pool to the right of the clump of trees, about one hundred yards off the track. She ran over, and found her mother dead in the pool. The body was not covered by the water, which was frozen over, the face and upper part of the body being : exposed. The deceased had been under Dr Cay ton for about three weeks, complaining of a pain in her side. She had been depressed since the death of her husband last December. A boy named Gordon Harper gave ; evidence as to the finding of the body. Constable Scully stated tilat, in answer to a -telephone message, he went to the Park about 9.30 a.m., ana found the body. The water in the pool was -about nine inches deep. The deceased was fully, dressed except -for boots and bonnet, which were lying beside where she was found, with a cloak and parasol. There were no marks or signs of violence. Dr Geoffrey Clayton stated that he had made a post-mortem examination," and •found all the indications of drowning. There were also signs of chronic heart trouble. There were no signs of any struggle. It would have required considerable determination on her part to drown-1-erself in such a pool" as the one des ribed. The jurv returned a verdict that the deceased -had been- found drowned, and that, there was no evidence to'show how she got Mo the water..