A Determined Suicide Print E-mail
Carlisle Patriot - Friday, July 26, 1844

A DETERMINED SUICIDE.

    A case of the most determined suicide occurred at Barnardcastle on
Tuesday last. An old woman named Dorothy STRAKER, whose intellect was
partially deranged, and who had been in very low spirits for some time
past attempted on Monday se'nnight to drown herself in the river Tees,
near the flour mill at the bottom of the Demesnes, but finding her
situation  none of the pleasantest, she got out again, but stumbled and
fell, and would in all probability had met with the fate which she had
sought had she not been observed from the mill and thus rescued.

It is rather remarkable that her son was building near the place, and
on hearing the alarm given had recognised his mother, and leaped from a
great height off the scaffold to the ground to rescue her. She was
carried home, and appeared to have recovered her wonted health and
spirits.

On Tuesday afternoon last she asked her daughter-in-law permission to
visit an old acquaintance in the town; but instead of going there she
had wandered down the side of the river, and deliberately thrown
herself in. A child that she took with her returned and informed some
haymakers of the circumstance, by whom she was got out, but the vital
spark had fled for ever. She had tied her apron round her bonnet, and
resolutely hurried herself into eternity. - Durham Advertiser.
 
 
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