A MELANCHOLY END.

Otago Witness, Issue 3803, 1 February 1927, Page 17

A MELANCHOLY END.

WELLINGTON, January 27. “ I am tired of struggling against iny troubles. There is little use of continuing a hopeless struggle. I have before me only old age, poverty, and ill-health.” These were the last words written by Francis Barclay, a single man, aged 61, who was found hanging in his room at Wilton street, Wadestown, on the morning of Tuesday, January 25. At the inquest to-day, Dr T. F. Corkill said that to his’ knowledge the deceased had suffered from neurasthenia for the past four years. He had been unable to work during that period. He was always imagining different ailments. but so far as any organic trouble was concerned the witness had been able to detect only some lung trouble. He had examined the body on the morning of January 25, and found that deceased had been dead for some hours. The body i Va i j on the bed with the head held up by a strap with a running noose fastened round the neck. Death was due to asphyxia, the _result of strangulation. The deceased had previously been in a state verging on melancholia, but he had not given any suggestion of contemplating suicide. . The Coroner (Mr E. Page. S.M.) said that the evidence showed that the deceased had been in indifferent health for some years, and during the present month he had suffered an attack of influenza, which had further lowered his vitality and his spirits. He found that, the deceased took his own life by hanging while in a depressed frame of mind, due to .11health.