Page:Edward Prime-Stevenson - The Intersexes.djvu/526

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ache" or "troubled with severe nervous headaches." One often reads between the lines of these trivial references the sombre uranian tragedy.

Thus we can group, in melancholy sequence, the following necrologic items from the papers:

Instance: Suicide
to Escape Legal
Process: Berlin.

"The business-acquaintances and family or other friends of the merchant S— of this city, were shocked to hear of his having committed suicide yesterday night, at his apartments, by taking hydrocyanic acid. He left all his business-affairs in order, by various memoranda, and the suicide was most carefully carried-out. The reason is known to be the threat against the deceased man of legal proceedings in connection with a recent scandal, under the provisions of Paragraph 175 of the Criminal Code, owing to certain developments lately attracting public notice again to the affair. Herr S— leaves a large fortune. He was unmarried."


Instance:
(London) to
escape Blackmail.

"The suicide of Mr. D— R—, a guest in the Hotel W— of this city, of which some account was given in yesterday's papers, appears to be explained beyond any doubt, by the letter left by the deceased to a family-friend in this city. "—I have been for two years at the mercy of a rascal, without honour or pity, who has driven me now to my death. God help me! I cannot struggle any more, and my means to keep him at bay are gone. I prefer death to disgrace." The painful affair has aroused much sympathy and surprise in the native city of the deceased, where however no such private anxieties were suspected. He was not married, but lived with his parents and sisters, in entirely comfortable circumstances."

"The well-known lawyer here, Dr. Johann B—, committed suicide yesterday by a revolver-shot, in his lodgings. Dr. B— was not married, and being in excellent circumstances had lately given up, quite prematurely compared with other men, some part of his large practice. Nothing whatever is wrong, as far as searching examinations already attest, with his affairs, and he was the last man to expect to be influenced by sentimental relations with the other sex. He has left only a note to a friend saying—"God be with you all! The reason of my suicide I shall carry along with me." Incurable neurasthenic trouble has been mentioned as the reason."


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