SUICIDE IN A WAREHOUSE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 13545, 19 March 1906, Page 2 (Supplement)

SUICIDE IN A WAREHOUSE.

A sad and ourious suicide occurred early on the morning of tlio 17th inst. Joseph, Ernest Sargent, bookkeeper with Messrs Thomson, Hridger, and Co. (Limited) left his home on the night of the 16th to do some back-work at. his oliice. He did not return, and in the small hours his wife and father-in-law went in search of him. They found him lying on the main floor of Messrs Thomson, Bndger, and Co.'? establishment, his head in a pool of Wood, a revolver by his side. He had been dead some time. A bullet from the revolver had traversed his brain. At the inquest .Mrs Sargent and her father alleged that iho deceased had been regularly in the office during extraordinary hours, even on .Sundays, and had suffered greatly from overwork. Dr Fulton stated that six weeks ago the deceased came to him suffering from nervous prostration, "on the verge of insanity." The doctor urgently advised an immediate three months' rest, but Sargent refused to apply for leave. The resulting tragedy, said Dr Bulton, " was just what I should haye expected." As against this, Mr J. C. Thomson, managing director of the firm, stated that deceased had not been overworked, and that if he had applied for leave he would immediately havegot. it. Deceased had done his work admirably, and had mado no complaint regarding lib health. Such a' conflict of evidence leaves the matter involved in some mystery. The jury found that Sargent died by his

own hand while in a stale of temporary insanity, Deceased, who was a man of exemplary habits, leaves a widow and three young children.