LOVE AND TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19419, 30 August 1926, Page 10

LOVE AND TRAGEDY.

BOY WHO HANGED HIMSELF. remarkable' letters. [FEOir OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT.] SYDNEY, Aug. 19. An inquest held this week at Kurri'kurri, near Newcastle, into the death of Matthew Hilton, aged 16 years, found hanged from a beam in a garage near his parents' home, showed that the boy had been worrying about a girl who had recently refused to pay him attention. A letter was produced at the inquest. It read:—"To the only-girl I ever.loved— Dear Jennie: By the time this note reaches you I will be dead. I have been very unhappy since the last time I sat with you. I have longed 'to sit .svith you again. Tuesday night, when you spoke to me as you did, that was the* finish. I hung on till to-day, but it is as long as I, can. Forgive and forget me, your devoted lover in pain. (Signed) 'Spike,' 178/26." Jennie Bryson, to whom the -letter was addressed, told the coroner that,'she had never kept company with Hilton, but had sat in a picture show with him one evening at the end of April. ; To his mother' the boy wrote:—-"Dear Mother : .1 am in a hurry to get- it over. Please see that Jennie gets the other letter. Bury me m the Kurri cemetery. Grant these, my last requests. Don't worry, mother, 1 am going from this cruel world. I pause as I finish to think-of the pain I might cause through this,, but don't worry, mum. The note'is for J. Br. Your .unworthy son,-Matt. - 1/8/26- Good-bye." The coroner returned a " Verdict of suicide. •