A SAD SUICIDE
THE MADNESS OF JOHN MAJOR.
Domestic Troubles Preyed on His Mind.
A Bullet Ends it All.
"December 5; 1.15 pm, train to Mosgiel: — Good-bye Ellen. I hope God will forgive you as I have forgiven you. I still love you, with all your faults. I will end this life on arrival at Mosgiel today, I am quite sane."
After writing this tragic good-bye to his wife, John Major, engine-driver, drove his train as usual on Saturday afternoon to Mosgiel. There was nothing remarkable in his manner as the train rattled along. He was very quiet, not speaking to his fireman unless spoken to, but he had been like that all the week. It was known that he suffered from insomnia, and his taciturnity excited no suspicion. His mate never for a moment imagined that the heart-weary man beside him had determined to set out on that last awful journey that knows no return. But the unhappy man's mind was made up irrevocably. Before starting from Dunedin he had. asked the guard, Alexander Waugh, what time the tram would arrive at Mosgiel and what time it would leave there. On being told, the driver remarked, "Oh, there will be plenty of time then." As soon as the train pulled up at Mosgiel, Driver Major left the engine without speaking and went straight to the station lavatory. He was never again seen alive. A shot was heard, and when William Jones, Acting-Stationmaster, went to the lavatory he found the dead body of the driver huddled up on the floor. There was
A GAPING BULLET HOLE IN THE HEAD
behind the right ear, and a revolver lay beside deceased's right hand. At the inquest, held at Mosgiel on Sunday, before Mr J. F. Leary, J. P., and a jury, it was made pitifully plain that the unhappy driver had for some time past been tortured by terrible mental agony on account of domestic affairs. Whether there was any real ground for this mental storm and anguish this paper cannot say, but the letters written by the driver and found on his dead body proved beyond doubt that his troubles wese only too terribly true in his own mind. In addition to the note quoted above, Constable Walton found a letter on the body addressed to Mr H. W. Widdowson, S.M. In this deceased had set out his troubles in detail, concluding with an appeal to the magistrate to take care of his daughter Nora. Other letters, all detailing deceased's domestic sorrows, were found addressed to Mr Widdowson, and they clearly showed that the unhappy man was in a state of mind that would quite account for the dread insomnia and despair. The jury, without retiring, returned a verdict that death Was due to a bullet-wound, inflicted whilst deceased was temporarily insane.
The dead driver, John Martin Major, was 52 years of age. and came of good family, He was the only son of James Major, C.E., and grandson of the late James Major, Queen's Counsellor, Londonderry, Ireland. -NZ Truth,12/12/1908.
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