Extraordinary

Suicide

Wife Gnaws Through The Fatal Cord

From a Special Correspondent JALUIT, August 4.

ANOTHER case of suicide by a native is reported.

A married man named Laire, who lived at Arno, had a dispute with his wife in April, and announced that he would hang himself. His alarmed wife tried to dis suade him; but, with his knife, he cut a couple of strips from the upper surface of the midrib of a green coconut leaf.

He then climbed a pandanus, fastened one end of the strip to a bough, made a noose at the other end, and sat up there smoking a cigarette while his wife stood beneath the tree, pleading with him to come down. He finished his smoke, slipped the noose over his head and lowered himself from the bough until the strip of coconut leaf was tight around his neck. He then let go.

His terrified wife, standing on her toes, could just reach his feet, and she tried to push him up so as to loosen the noose.

She failed in this. So she seized his legs and swung on them, hoping that her addi tional weight would break the strip of leaf.

But the coconut fibre did not break, and the noose was drawn tighter.

Then the frantic woman struggled up the tree and reached the bough where her husband was suspended. She had no knife, and therefore commenced to gnaw at the tough strip of fibre. It was a slow business but, finally, she gnawed through the strip of leaf, and her hus band’s body fell to the ground.

Other natives arrived on the scene and gave what help they could. But by that time the man was dead.

There was another case of attempted suicide about the same time.

A woman had a dispute with her daugh ter, and as a result she went into the out house and hanged herself by a cord, on a beam. The cord broke and her husband, hearing the noise of the falling body, en tered the outhouse.

Finding his wife there in circumstances which clearly indicated attempted suicide, he dealt with the matter promptly and ad ministered vigorous chastisement to the lady. That ended it—there were no more attempts at suicide.