Two Despondent Men Attempt Suicide: Laudanum, Morphine, Noose

Atlanta, 1896

BOTH WANTED DEATH

Two Despondent Men Attempt Suicide in Two Ways.

LAUDANUM, MORPHINE, NOOSE

One in a Wagon Yard, the Other in a Shed.

WILL SIMPSON TOOK DRUG POISON

He Was Found with a large Quantity of Drugs In His Stomach, but Was Saved.

The suicide mania was abroad in the city yesterday. Two citizens were seized with the desire to end their existence. Both tried the usual methods of suicides.

One of the desperate men attempted to hang himself in a deserted shed. He was found and cut down just in time to save his life. His neck bears the imprint of the improvised noose, and it also has a decided crick in it.

The other unfortunate decided on the laudanum and morphine route to the other world and he swallowed enough poison to kill several men. He was found in a wagon yard and hauled to the hospital just as the poisonous drugs were taking effect. Before the doctors could pump out the man he was nearer to death than is usual in cases when would-be suicides are saved. His was given up as a hopeless case, but at the last moment the man was saved. He is very sick now.

The poison patient was picked up by some farmers in Morris's wagon yard, on Decatur street, adjoining the police station. He had taken an ounce of laudanum and three grains of morphine in his desperate effort to kill himself. The discoverers of the man called in the police and it was found that the sick man, Will Simpson, a bartender, who works for J. G. Sprayberry, on Decatur street, was in a very bad way. He was getting worse rapidly, and but for the prompt action in sending for the ambulance and hauling the man to the hospital he would have died in the yard.

Simpson lay between life and death at the hospital nearly all day. The physicians and surgeons in charge devoted several hours applying the restoratives in such cases, and after hard work they were rewarded by seeing the sick man begin to revive. He improved slowly, and late in the afternoon was on the road to recovery. Last night the physicians said that he would recover. Officers Shepard, Walton and Abbott took charge of the man when he was found, and they sent him to the hospital. He declined to tell why he had swallowed the drugs. When told that he might die he said that he had nothing to say beforehand.

Hanging In a Shed.

The would be suicide who attempted to hang himself is not known. His name was not taken at the Grady hospital. It is not the custom of the officials there to take the names of patients who attempt to kill themselves. The man is a negro. He was found in an old shed on a lot on Liberty street, near the old barracks in the western part of the city. He tied a cloth about his neck for a rope and jumped off into space with the other end of the noose fastened to a rafter above. When cut down the darky was breathing hard and was in a dangerous fix, but he was brought round all right.

—The Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, March 16, 1896, page 9.