SUICIDE AT NEWMARKET.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8472, 24 January 1891, Page 5

SUICIDE AT NEWMARKET.

A TAILOR STABS HIMSELF WITH

HIS SHEARS. Yesterday morning a little after five o'clock a tailor, resident at Newmarket, Mr. John McCarthy, attempted to commit suicide in his workshop by stabbing himself three times in. the breast over the region of the heart. The following are the circumstances :—Mr. McCarthy has been in low spirits for months past. Some time ago he took a razor and went upstairs. Mrs. McCarthy followed him, and found him sitting on the side of the bed with the razor open, which she took from him. He asked her to leave it with him as " they were after him." A month ago he had another bad attack of melancholia, and wanted his razor, but she put it out of the way. For two or three nights past he had suffered from sleeplessness, and on Thursday night he was again asking for his razor, but she had removed it. He had no sleep during the night, and kept getting out of bed every few minutes, calling for his razor, and saying " they would tear him to pieces." About five o'clock yesterday morning she was awakened by a noise in tLe workshop, and, finding her husband out of bed, she went downstairs and found him with the large shears open. One of the points was in his breast, and he was trying to force it in by knocking it against the mantelpiece. She took the shears from him. He laid hold of a small pair, which she also took from him. McCarthy lay down on the floor, and seemed to go into a faint, and Mrs. McCarthy sent for a man named Cowan, who informed Constable Ilist of the occurrence, and telegraphed for Dr. Mackellar. In a short space of time Dr. Mackellar was on the spot, and Dr. Girdler arrived a little afterwards. On the two medical men examining McCarthy, they found three serious wounds over the region of the heart, and feeling satisfied that they were mortal, they did not recommend McCarthy's removal to the Hospital, both as causing unnecessary suffering, and also that he might probably die on the road. On Dr. Mackellar ascertaining that Dr. Haines was .Mrs. McCarthy's medical man, he advised her to send for that gentleman, who accordingly took the case in hand. McCarthy died at his residence, last evening. A coroner's inquest will be held to-day. _"