One hundred years ago
IT APPEARS that the Duke of Bed- ford, who was supposed to have been killed by the recent burst of cold, shot himself in his bedroom. He had latterly become so pronounced a hypochon- driac, that his family began to fear for his reason. As it appears, they had cause, for during an attack of pneumo- nia, the bewildering pain upset his remaining power of self-control, and ordering his nurses out of the room, he shot himself through the heart. The tragedy is not an unfrequent one in less conspicuous circles, but the family, with the natural reluctance of all families to admit a suicide, made unusual efforts to keep the inevitable inquest private. They forgot that the penalty of a coronet is the extinction of privacy, and were, of course, at once assailed by a shower of newspaper paragraphs and reporters' hints, for most of which there was no justification whatever. The suicide was a most ordinary one, and would never have been noticed, but for the insatiable curiosity of democrats about Dukes with £300,000 a year. It seems to them impossible that men in such a position should be either de- mented or tired of life. "Can a Prince die of typhoid, like me?" asked a joiner of the late Mr. Langton Sanford.
The Spectator, 24 January 1891
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