| Citation |
NHG-P.774.011
11 Feb 1774:21 (903)
New-York, January 13. The most comfortable of all
conditions in human, last Sunday fortnight, met with a
shocking affront. It happened at a principal town in
Long-Island, as follows: A woman of 43, and a man of 36,
had agreed to be married, and a minister was engaged to
perform the sacred rite; the man upon calling at the mansion
of his intended spouse, and not finding her at home, was
jocosely told that her mind was suddenly changed, and she
had rode off to avoid his importunities; he, taking all for
gospel, suddenly retired, and slipping the halter form his
horses head, fasted it round his own, and very composedly
attended a venerable tree in the road, on which the dismal
demoniack was the next morning found by his own father,
suspended by the neck, between heaven and earth, a lifeless
corpse.
Tis odd, the erring vulgar say,
That things have so miscarried;
John hanged himself the very day
He was to have been married.
But talk not, friends, without your book,
Nor blindly blame a brother;
For, after all, he only took
One noose instead of t'other.
. . . [8 more lines]
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