Or suicide may be complicated with homicide—murder—because of philarrenic love and jealousy. Here are two instances:
"In the N— gasse, last evening, Herr Rudolf Wieser, hotelier, was shot and killed instantly by his best friend, one Loren/ Rotzer. The murder immediately thereafter turned the same pistol on himself, and was immediately dead also. Both bodies were found in the room of little hotel where the crime had occurred. A letter left behind by Rotzer, "for whoever might open it," stated that Wieser (who was the owner of the hotel) had made him, Rotzer "unspeakably miserable" because their relationship of a certain kind not necessary to specify here, had been "broken off", to the ruin of the writer; and the letter concluded with an appeal for forgiveness and kindly judgment. The young man also left a melancholy letter to his mother."
"A mysterious affair, which still awaits explanation, has put the residents of the Kleinseite District into much excitement. Opposite the A— Barracks, was established the shop of Johann Rak, a man of 35 years of age, unmarried. Yesterday morning the shop was not opened as usual, and a certain Joseph Rak,—not a relative, though of the same name as the owner—a clerk to Johann Rak, was not to be found. Hours passed, and the place remained closed; and neither of the two Raks was visible. Both of them lived in rooms in the building, and these rooms also were noticed as shut. On looking through a window, young Joseph Rak was seen lying on his bed, dressed. The door, was forced, and the clerk was discovered to be dead. Two half-filled glasses of soda-water were on the table by the bed, along with some confectionery. The bed of the merchant, Johann Rak, was undisturbed. The physician summoned found no traces of violence on the person of the young clerk, but there is no doubt now that he was poisoned. The body of his employer, the older Rak, was discovered in the cellar of the shop, hanging to a. hook. He had committed suicide, with careful deliberation, during the night. It had been pretty generally said in the neighbourhood that the relations between the two Raks were of a criminal sort (under Paragraph 129 of the Statutes). The physical examination during the autopsy of each body afforded grounds for conclusively accepting this idea. What precipitated the murder and suicide is not clear: but it is thought that the elder Rak poisoned the young clerk and then comitted suicide. Still—this is open to some question."
— 513 —
