Curiosities of Suicide. verted by the defendants that the purchase will be made unless the injunction is granted, and in fact the affidavits filed by the defend ants fully establish the allegations of the com plaint. The plaintiff's bond on injunction will therefore be fixed at $1000, and the injunc tion will issue." That afternoon a meeting of the trustees of the Puget Sound Electric Company was held, at which Mr. Budd, as counsel for the company, was present. Budd advised the board that he could not secure relief by ap peal within the short time yet remaining in which to take advantage of the Kauffmann option, and said the only thing he could advise was to buy Anderson's stock at any figure short of $40,000. The board winced at this alternative, but they figured that the
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Kauffmann stock was worth the money, even if they had to submit to blackmail in a large (sum to carry out their purchase. The upshot of the matter was that Mr. Williams called on Anderson and effected the purchase of An derson's stock for $30,000. It was one of the stipulations in their agreement that the terms of the sale should be deemed confidential. The $30,000 was charged up as an expense in effecting the purchase of the Kauffmann stock, and no stockholder now objecting thereto, this purchase was consummated, and a few weeks later the Puget Sound Electric Company secured the power contract with the Seattle and Suburban Railway Company. Anderson took the train for St. Louis, a wealthier and happier man.
CURIOSITIES OF SUICIDE. WHAT is the most popular form of sui cide? In France, drowning seems the commonest method, possibly because it is the handiest. Professor Merselli, of Turin Uni versity, tells us that drunkards and people who are tired of life and worn out with its miseries take to hanging; those to whom family misfortunes have made life unendur able choose drowning. It is perhaps not so wonderful that crossed or jealous lovers should resort to poison or the revolver. Protestants are more apt to fly to suicide than Catholics, who, again, are less impatient of life than Jews, inclined as that race is to mental alienation. Another writer on this subject has observed that a man will, by pref erence, hang himself, and a woman drown herself; and, as a national peculiarity, it may be mentioned that the percentage of those who select sharp instruments as a means of death is so great in England that it may be said that the English people are the greatest "cut-throats" in Europe. Many persons who have never before dis
played great originality have distinguished themselves by inventing novel forms of sui cide. We have all heard of the Roman lady who swallowed red-hot coals; the foreign gentleman who put an end to himself with a small private guillotine also acquired pos thumous renown. • But perhaps the most original, though unsuccessful, would-be sui cide on record, is the young lady in London who knelt down, like a votary of Jugger naut, in front of an omnibus. A young lady "deliberately went in front of the horses of an omnibus and knelt down," according to a policeman who observed her singular con duct. On being rescued, she stated that "she wanted to be killed;" but she might have se lected some method at once less prosaic and less original of gratifying her desire. Many hansom cabmen would have executed the business without even being requested to do so. In a fiery furnace an iron worker, at Low Moor, preferred to meet death. His fellow workmen saw him pitch himself head long into the flames of a raging furnace, in
