SUICIDE AT GERMAN HILL.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume XL, Issue XL, 12 May 1911, Page 4

SUICIDE AT GERMAN HILL.

Ophir, May Sru. The police received word to-day that a young man named Herbert Horatio Hewitt, committed suicide this morning by shooting himself with a shot gun. INQUEST. An inquest was held before Mr Rtibt. Rutherford, acting coroner and a jury of six, Mr Edgar Monk being chosen foreman. The following evidence was elicited —s H>-rb*<rt Horatio Hewitt, 32 years ... .-. . >■ sided witlini- motn-r at - . -;i ii I,' i'i.olourn, .slis a suu-r respectaoie man. He was on the best of terms with the other members of the family. He was in a prosperous way, and was free from financial worries For a year his relatives had noticed him to be quiet, and that he did not take the same interest in his work Latterly he had coreplained of pains in his head, but he did not show sign 3 of a suicidal nature, and no one suspected him of doing such a thing. On the morning of the 3rd inst. he went into the house and asked his mother for the gun, saying he would go out and shoot a rabbit, which was a common thing for him to do. He took the gun, and shortly after he left his mother heard a shot fired. At 12.30 his brother, Stewart Charles Hewitt, asked for Herbert, and was informed he' had gone shooting. Shortly afterwards he noticed Herbert's dog v come home alone. This made him uneasy, and he went out to investigate, A neighbour, Robert Karrex, accompanied Stewart on the search. In about half-an-hour they came across the body near a rock. The gun was close by and a piece of string was tied to the trigaer and to a grow • ing scrub bush. They did not touch the body but wired for Constable Jones, who arrived about 4 p.m. the same evening and found the body as was described. The body was quite cold and had been dead four or five hours. The gun was a double-barrel muzzle loader, and one barrel had been fired. Scratched on a cap box found in his Docket were the words " I die a cowardly —" Good-bye, never had connection with a married woman," Some other words wera ineligible. The body was removed to Mrs Hewitt's, the mother of deceased. The verdict was: " Died from gunshot wound, self-inflicted, while in a state of tem porary insanity."