The bridegroom’s servant knew his master would leave the place very soon after the wedding was over, and seeing him draw his pistols the night before, took an opportunity of going into his chamber and charged them.
Upon their return from the garden they went into that room, and, after a little fond raillery on the subject of their courtship, the bridegroom took up one of the pistols, which he knew he had unloaded the night before, presented it to her, and said, with the most graceful air, whilst she looked pleased at his agreeable flattery, “Now, madam, repent of all those cruelties you have been guilty of towards me; consider, before you die, how often you have let a poor wretch freeze under your casement. You shall die, you tyrant! you shall die with all those instruments of death about you,—with that enchanting smile, those killing ringlets of your hair!”
“Give fire,” said she, laughing. He did so, and shot her dead. Who can speak his condition? But he bore it so patiently as to call up his man. The poor wretch entered, and his master locked the door upon him. “Will,” said he, “did you charge these pistols?” He answered, “Yes;” upon which his master shot him dead with the undischarged instrument of death. After this, amidst a thousand broken sobs, piercing groans, and distracted motions, he wrote the following letter to the father of his dead mistress:—
“Sir,—Two hours ago, I told you truly I was the happiest man alive. Your daughter lies dead at my feet, killed by my own hand through a mistake of my man’s charging my pistols unknown to me! I have murdered him for it. Such is my wedding-day. I will follow my wife to her grave; but before I throw myself upon my sword, I command my distraction so far as to explain my story to you. I fear my heart will not keep together till I have stabbed it. Poor, good old man, remember that he who killed your daughter died for it! In death I give you thanks, and pray for you though I dare not pray for myself. If it be possible, do not curse me. Farewell for ever!
“T. D.”
This being finished, he put an end to his life. The body of the servant was interred in the village where he was killed; and the young couple, attended by their maid, were brought to London, and privately interred in one grave, in the parish in which the unhappy father resided.
The following case occurred in England not many years ago. A young couple, the wife aged sixteen and the husband nineteen, discovered, a few months after marriage, that money was much more easily spent than procured; and being unable to live in the style they wished, they determined, after having held a long consultation on the subject, that their best and only remedy was at once to put an end to their imaginary miseries by committing suicide. After dinner, the husband attended his usual business, and brought home with him at tea-time a quarter of a pound of sugar of lead, for the purpose of executing their design. The whole of this poison was dissolved in a pot of coffee, and carefully strained and sweetened, to render it more palatable. The young man then deliberately wrote a letter, explaining the circumstances to his father, to whom he had previously sent a message, requesting him to call in the evening. At the time appointed the husband and wife drank off the poison, and then, embracing each other, laid down to die. When they were discovered, all that they could be induced to say was the word “poison.” Medical assistance was immediately procured, but no persuasions could induce them to take an antidote, both of them heroically resolving to die. The young woman, however, reconsidered the point, and began to think that death was not so agreeable a thing as she first supposed; but, retaining her feelings of obedience strong in death, imploringly said to her husband, when she was pressed to take the medicine offered, “Shall I take it, dear?” To this he gave a direct negative, enforcing it with an oath; but her love of life triumphed over her sense of obedience to the commands of her lord, and she consented to swallow the antidote. The husband, however, was not so willing to venture upon the cares and vexations of the world, and obstinately persisted in dying; but as this was not thought prudent, he was made by physical force to swallow the medicine, and was restored to life, and is still in the land of the living.
Instances of mutual suicide are by no means uncommon on the Continent, and were not unknown in ancient times. The inhabitants of England have not become as yet romantic enough for these exhibitions. The case of M. Kleist, the celebrated Prussian poet, and Madame Vogle, may be fresh in the minds of our readers. Madame Vogle, it is said, had suffered long under an incurable disorder; her physicians had declared her death inevitable; she herself came to a resolution to put an end to her existence. M. Kleist, the poet, and a friend of her family, had also determined to kill himself. These two unhappy beings, having confidentially communicated to each other their horrible resolution, resolved to carry it into effect at the same time. They repaired to the inn at Wilhemstadt, between Berlin and Potsdam, on the borders of the Sacred Lake. For one night and one day they were preparing themselves for death, by putting up prayers, singing, drinking wine and rum, and concluded by drinking sixteen cups of coffee. They wrote a letter to M. Vogle, to announce to him the resolution they had taken, and to beg him to come as speedily as possible, for the purpose of seeing their remains devoutly interred. After having despatched the letter to Berlin, they repaired to the bank of the Sacred Lake, where they sat down opposite to each other. M. Kleist then took a loaded pistol and shot Madame Vogle through the heart,—she instantly fell back dead; he then reloaded the pistol, and applying the muzzle to his own head, blew out his brains.
A horrid scene of mixed murder and suicide, accompanied with great calmness in its execution, was exhibited in the year 1732, in the family of one Richard Smith, a bookbinder. This man being a prisoner for debt within the walls of the King’s Bench, was found hanging in his chamber, together with his wife; and their infant of two years old lay murdered in a cradle beside them. Smith left three letters behind him, one of which was addressed to his landlord, in which he says:—“He hopes effects enough will be found to discharge his lodgings, and recommends to his protection his ancient dog and cat.” A second was addressed to his cousin Brindley, and contained severe censure on the person through whose means he had been brought into difficulties, with a desire also that Brindley would make the third letter public, which was as follows:—
“These actions, considered in all their circumstances, being somewhat uncommon, it may not be improper to give some account of the cause; and that it was an inveterate hatred we conceived against poverty and rags, evils that through a train of unlucky accidents were become inevitable. For we appeal to all that ever knew us, whether we were idle or extravagant, whether or no we have not taken as much pains to get our living as our neighbours, although not attended with the same success. We apprehend the taking our child’s life away to be a circumstance for which we shall be generally condemned; but for our own parts we are perfectly easy on that head. We are satisfied it is less cruelty to take the child with us, even supposing a state of annihilation as some dream of, than to leave her friendless in the world, exposed to ignorance and misery. Now in order to obviate some censures which may proceed either from ignorance or malice, we think it proper to inform the world, that we firmly believe the existence of an Almighty God; that this belief of ours is not an implicit faith, but deduced from the nature and reason of things. We believe the existence of an Almighty Being from the consideration of his wonderful works, from those innumerable celestial and glorious bodies, and from their wonderful order and harmony. We have also spent some time in viewing those wonders which are to be seen in the minute part of the world, and that with great pleasure and satisfaction. From all which particulars we are satisfied that such amazing things could not possibly be without a first mover,—without the existence of an Almighty Being. And as we know the wonderful God to be Almighty, so we cannot help believing that he is also good—not implacable, not like such wretches as men are, not taking delight in the misery of his creatures; for which reason we resign up our breath to him without any terrible apprehensions, submitting ourselves to those ways which in his goodness he shall please to appoint after death. We also believe in the existence of unbodied natures, and think we have reason for that belief, although we do not pretend to know their way of subsisting. We are not ignorant of those laws made in terrorem, but leave the disposal of our bodies to the wisdom of the coroner and his jury, the thing being indifferent to us where our bodies are laid. From hence it will appear how little anxious we are about a ‘hic jacet.’ We for our part neither expect nor desire such honours; but shall content ourselves with a borrowed epitaph, which we shall insert in this paper: