University of Virginia Library

`IN AT THE DEATH.'

In 1819 an inquest was held on the body of a gentleman found hanging from one of the trees in St James's Park. The evidence established the

melancholy fact that the deceased was in the habit of frequenting gambling houses, and had sunk into a state of dejection on account of his losses; and it seemed probable that it was immediately after his departure from one of these receptacles of rogues and their dupes that he committed suicide. The son of the gate-keeper at St James's saw several persons round the body at four o'clock in the morning, one of whom, a noted gambler, said: `Look at his face; why, have you forgotten last night? Don't you recollect him now?' They were, no doubt, all gamblers — `in at the death.'

The three following stories, if not of actual suicide, relate crimes which bear a close resemblance to self-murder.