A MELANCHOLY SUICIDE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XVI, Issue 5496, 28 June 1879, Page 7

A MELANCHOLY SUICIDE.

The Australasian contains the following :— It suited Sir George Bowen in delivering his public speeches to present himself as a man of the most tender sensibility, and literally gushing with sympathetic emotion. If that character has any shade of truth we would wish the ex-Governor no more acute punishment for his heartless participation in Black Wednesday ths.n what would result from the persual of si recent issue of the Daily Telegraph, recounting, the circumstances of the death of Mr. Thomas Abcott, one of the victims of that foul act of political ruffianism. Mr. Abcott was a senior clerk in the Education department, and was dismissed on Black Wednesday by the "gallant major" who presides over that department. He accepted the fate dealt out to him by the ruthless hands administering the Government, aud applied for his compensation. This, however, he was not able to get paid in fal , , and consequently his project of starting in business was shipwrecked. Headers will remember! » the mendacious assurances made at public meetings by Ministers over and over again, that all claims for compensation were paid at once—assurances generally mingled with brutal gibes at the recipients of the compensation. Feeling himself sinking deeper into debt and difficulties, Mr. Abcott wrote a simple, manly petition to the Governor, stating his case, and praying for payment of the amount due to him and compensation for his lost by tho delay in payment. To this Sir George returned a cold, stereotyped reply that he bad no power to interfere. We hear nothing further of the course of events with Mr. Abcott till one day last week, when an inquest was held over his bady, he having died from an overdose of morphia. The occurreace was believed to be accidental, but the publication of some papers sent by Mr. Abcott a day or two before his death to the office of the Daily Telegraph shew< that his being unable to fae_> the distress to which he and his family were brought by the cruej diahoneat acts of the men who disgraco the position of the Government of Victoria. His last words in this letter, after showing the hollowness and falsehood of the " major's " assertions of saving by the dismissals, are the following :—"ln conclusion, permit me. Sir George, to wish that your end may be as peaceful as mine will be. I am about to take three grains of muriate of morphia, aud as I cannot die and, leave my babes to encounter the buffets of a cold and unfeeling world, I am doing my best to take them with me. Should Ibe so unfortunate as to leave any of them behind me, I hope they will not be permitted to starve. Trusting, Sir George, thai; you may never again be made, by designing men, the instrument of torture and death to others, I remain, yours forgivingly—TnoMis Abcott." We do not intend to make any comments .on this pathetic and miserable story. There is but one British community in the world in which its details could have happened, only one Government by which the circumstances could have been occasioned, only one Governor, we believe and hope, who would have taken part in such a political crime, and only one British publio which could look on at such proceedings with easy-going indifference.