Page:Journal Of The Indian Archipelago And Eastern Asia Series.i, Vol.3 (IA in.ernet.dli.2015.107696).pdf/533

 himself and perpetrates by an act of suicide the most horrible of all murders. On the 9th February 1849, an inquest was held on the body of "Oh Chin Sing" a Chinese at Tanjong Pagar. "The body was that of a male Chinese about 25 years of age, yellow, emaciated, and diseased looking, with a wound on the head as by a bruise, and a deep penetrating incision in the upper part of the abdomen, cutting into that cavity, as well as into the chest; with 3 superficial wounds near as if inflicted by a knife" According to the evidence of his friends and those he lived with, the deceased had been sick for 24 days of a pain and craving at his stomach; he had been an opium smoker to a great extent, but being at that time poor he could not obtain his usual supply; mad with a craving he could not satisfy, and a pain he could not allay, he often expressed a wish to die. In the morning he attempted to kill himself by striking his head with an iron pot, which broke and bruised his head, and in the afternoon being surrounded by his friends, and only separated from them by a mat, be laid his abdomen and chest open with a razor, to such an extent that bis bowels protruded on the bed he lay on, yet a slight moan only revealed his agony, and not till his friends saw the blood trickling from his couch, did they suspect what he had done; and done so effectually, that in half an hour after he died, with the razor firmly grasped in his hand. On the 17th of June 1819, an inquest was held on one "Cho-ah-Keow" who was admitted into the Pauper Hospital the day before, with his throat cut by an instrument used as a chopping knife (similar to the large knife used by cooks in England for mincing) and who died some hours after. On the evidence of Lim-ah-Chew "the deceased was a palanquin maker, had been sick with diarrhoea for 20 days, he could not bear the pain and so cut his throat." "The deceased was an opium smoker, and the witness is one when he has money." The deceased frequently mentioned his intention of dying as he "could not bear the pain and had no opium." When he was admitted into the hospital, he had slight or no symptoms of diarrhoea upon him, and as that complaint is known to all not to be attended with much pain, no doubt was left in the Coroner and Jury's mind that the deceased had committed suicide while labouring under the agony induced by the want of the drag. Many cases have lately presented themselves to me, where no other cause could be assigned for death than the want of opium, and the diseases which the former abuse of it created. I understand that new legislative measures are about to be framed in Bengal regarding the revenue from the sale of opium. If the local