Major-General C. E. Luard, whose wife was murdered near Igbtham
on August 24th, committed suicide yesterday week at a railway-crossing near Barham Court, where he had arrived on the previous evening to stay with his friend Colonel Wards, M.P. From the statement read by Colonel Warde at the inquest held on Saturday last, it appeared that General Luard, whose manner bad been perfectly quiet and natural throughout Thursday evening, rose soon after eight on Friday morning, quitted the house shortly before nine, leaving three letters in his room, and proceeded to the level-crossing at Teaton, where he threw himself before the Maidstone express. Colonel Wards gave it as his personal opinion that General Luard's decision to destroy himself, while prompted by the malicious anonymous letters be had received, was the result of a sudden impulse, and that the three letters were all written on the Friday morning. He also expressed great and natural indignation that the news- papers had published on the Saturday what purported to be a letter from General Luard to himself stating that he could not face his son. This letter, he declared, was " absolutely a lie from start to finish." In summing up the Coroner com- mented severely on the writers of the anonymous letters which had driven General Luard to suicide, and added that, so far as the evidence given at the previous inquest went, he " absolutely accounted for all his movements, and absolutely showed that he could not have been present and committed this terrible act." We deal elsewhere with the aspects of the case which provoked the Coroner's remarks, and the heavy responsibility incurred throughout this tragic business by the Press.
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