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SUICIDE OF A MURDERER

 

Doct. Joel DIVINE, on whose late trial for the murder of Richard WALL the jury were unable to agree, and who was in prison, in the jail of this village, waiting for a second trial, committed suicide on Sunday morning last by opening the jugular vein in his neck, which caused him to bleed to death.

     He was found on Sunday morning by the Sheriff, between 7 and 8 o'clock, when he went his rounds to see that the prisoners were all safe. He was lying on his face, in his own blood. Doct. J. COOPER was immediately called in. But although he was then warm, was still breathing, and his pulse could be felt at his temple, yet he was past being saved. He had made the incision in his neck with a surgical instrument called the scalpel. The cut was about two inches long. Both the vein and the artery were severed, showing that he meant to make sure of self-destruction.

     It is supposed he made the incision while standing before the glass in his room, and that he remained standing before it, until he fainted and fell from loss of blood.

     For some days past he had acted as if he was not in his right mind. He was not entirely well either, as on Tuesday Dr. COOPER gave him a cathartic to remove costiveness, and bled him to ease the pain in his head, from the latter of which he said he experienced relief. To Sheriff SEAMAN he exclaimed at one time,  "For God sake save me from the gallows."  And the night before he did the fatal deed, when the Sheriff took away his razor, fearing he might use it upon himself, he said  "he had thought of taking his life."

     That he had meditated it, is evident from the following letter to G. DEAN, Esq., his counsel:

     Mr. DEAN: -- If you will, I should like to have you come to my room to-day, and bring with you save another trial. (unreadable) __tained without trial, and save pain and trouble.

             Yours truly,

Nov. 12, 1848       Joel DIVINE.

     Mr. DEAN did not find this note for a day or two, and did not go in to see DIVINE until Saturday.  Then D. did not recollect having sent for the book, though he took it, and turned over the leaves. He told Mr. DEAN that if he had not come in  "he had made up his mind to put an end to this business."

     On going out Mr. D. told the Sheriff he had better take away his razor as well as everything else by which he could do injury to himself. The razor was removed, but a small instrument case containing about half a dozen surgical instruments was not seen. The Sheriff had heard he had such a case, and searched for it, but did not find it. On the morning he was found in his blood, it stood open upon the stand.

     The corpse was laid out that day, and was seen by a large number of persons. In the afternoon it was taken by the friends of the deceased to Pleasant Valley. Yesterday a funeral sermon was preached in one of the churches in that town, and the body interred.

     Had DIVINE lived, another jury would have been empanelled next week for his trial, which would have been a difficult case, but it would probably have been successful, and then his trial would have been prosecuted.

     The deceased we should judge was about 38 years of age.

     These facts came out before the coroner's jury, which was held on Sunday.

     A man had slept in the room with DIVINE, but as he did not like to do it, he was alone that night, as he had been the preceding one. - [Poughkeepsie Telegraph.

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SUDDEN DEATH -- We understand that Mr. Francis FRANCISCO, an old and highly respected resident of West WEBSTER, died very suddenly yesterday morning. He had been in usual good health, and on Monday ploughed in the field all day. Yesterday morning he got his team for the purpose of coming to the city, and went to his house to eat breakfast. Soon after taking his seat at the table, he fell back in his chair, and expired in a few minutes. His age was 64 years. The cause of his death is supposed to have been apoplexy.

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HELD TO BAIL -- Moses Y. BEACH and his two sons have held to bail, in New York, on complaint of C. Z. JUDSON, better known as "Ned BUNTLINE," who charges BEACH and his sons with being publishers and proprietors of an indecent publication, called "The Sun," in which publication of all manner of indedent(?), shameful and immoral advertisements, are daily issued and spread before the public.

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A DANGEROUS PRACTICAL JOKE

 

The following incident was described to us by a friend: His grown up elder brother lodged in a side street of the new town of Edinburgh, and he himself arrived late one night on an unexpected visit to him from the country. Being known to the landlady, he was admitted at the door without question, and passed into his brother's chamber, without knowing whether or not the latter was returned from his professional engagements. However, on perceiving the gas let down, with open books about the table, and as it was not long past eleven, he sat down to amuse himself with a volume, and wait his brother's coming. Half an hour had elapsed and still no appearance of him; the youth was getting weary enough of the dull medical work he was obliged to persue, when at last he fancied he heard a low breathing through the half opened door of the little bedroom. The thought struck him that his brother had been all the while comfortably in bed, and half provoked at his own stupidity, half at his brother's unconsciousness, he resolved, with boyish recklessness, to play him a trick.

     Stealing into the little bed room, through the window blind of which the moon shed a dim light, he all at once placed his hand forcibly on the sleeper's breast and shouted out to him in a threatening voice to rise. With one bound the young man sprang out to the floor, and before the other could contrive to make himself known, there was a struggle between them, in which the former reached hold of a pistol from his dressing table.  "Oh, for mercy's sake, Tom!"  grasped out the younger, matching aside the window blind, as his brother, still bewildered with sleep, held him at arm's length. He said he should never forget the expression of his brother's face in the moonlight, as the fierce glare of hostility charged into recognition, and he let fall his weapon on the floor. -- Neither of the two could speak for some time, but the first words the eldest said were:  "John, you stood nearer this night to making me your murderer than tongue can tell. If that pistol had been primed, man, I'd never speak to you again I think. Never, while you live, play a second trick like that on me." Many a practical joke has had a worst ending; but the narrator confessed he never passed such another moment of emotion -- not fear at all, but the throng of a thousand lightning horrors -- as that in which he saw his brother's eyes just opened from sleep, meeting him like those of a mortal foe, and by his own thoughtless freak.-- {Douglass Jerold's Mag.

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ACCIDENTAL DEATH BY POISON -- A heart-rending case of death by taking poison occurred in the village of Albion, Orleans county, on the 23d ult. On that morning Mrs. Mary NIXON, wife of Joseph NIXON, Esq., of Medina, who with her husband had arrived at the hotel the evening previous, feeling a little indisposed, called at a drug store, and inquired for morphine. The clerk set upon the countersome bottles of that medicine, and also one bottle of strychnine, (extract of nux vomica, usually called dog button,) not thinking at the time that there was strychnine among them.-- While the attention of the clerk was directed to other customers, Mrs. N. turned out what she supposed to be a small quantity of morphine, which she purchased, and returning to the hotel, took from it a portion, which, being the most deadly kind of poison, produced immediate and excruciating distress, and consequent death in about twenty minutes. Her last, and about the only words she uttered were,  "I have taken the wrong medicine-- I have taken poison -- send for a doctor." -- A physician was procured, but all medical help was in vain.

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PAINFUL AND FATAL ACCIDENT -- A sad occurrence took place in Ontario, Wayne county on the 1st inst. A young man named Israel A. SWEET, son of Samuel SWEET, of Walworth, was chopping alone in the woods near Inman Cross Roads, and it is supposed that in attempting to dislodge a small tree, he was hit on the head and so badly injured that he died about 8 o'clock the same evening. The accident must have happened in the forenoon, and was not known until near sun-down, when a friend went into the woods to visit him, and found him with both hands clenched fast to his axe helve, with his face lying upon the axe. He was immediately removed to the house, and medical aid procured, but without avail. He was about 21 years of age, and highly respected as an industrious, worthy young man.-- We are indebted to a friend for these particulars of the accident.

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