The Daily British Colonist and Victoria Chronicle

Saturday Morning, April 25, 1868

The Late Suicide of Cadboro Bay. Upon official inquiry into this very lamentable and distressing case some further particulars have been obtained, which show conclusively it was one of determined suicide, springing from some unknown cause of metal agony, and carried to its fatal ending with persistence wonderful in a person so young and of the gentler sex. The spot selected to draw 'life's drama' to a sudden end was a point of precipitous rock of some size and thickly covered with moss, over which the poor seems to have walked rapidly, leaving a thousand foot-prints behind, as if her soul in a terrible moment was wrung with intense agony. On this spot the fragments of a letter were found, but so small that they afford no clue to the contents or to whom addressed; the sad words 'good-bye,' 'farewell,' 'Martha Booth,' are all that can be deciphered with certainty; but though they afford no evidence of the motive urging self-destruction they are quite sufficient to prove premeditations. On the edge of this rock her hoop-skirt lay coiled just as it must have fallen to the ground on being unbuckled, but between this act and the one that opened the 'great unknown future' there is nothing more known. It is enough, however, to show that every precaution was taken to avoid failure. And this indeed is the mystery of suicide. To ourselves, in the possession of reason and its attributes of judgment and reflection, it seems impossible to reconcile the madness which prompted self-destruction and the coincident method of action which makes it successful. It is painful to record such cases, painful to dwell upon them, and we most sincerely offer our condolence to the family thus suddenly stricken down with grief. Lets us hope that the peace which could not be found on earth, even for one so young, has been realised in heaven. The number of dead bodies lately found in different places is something so usual amongest us that it is exciting quite an alarm. Only one of the four male bodies so far has been identified, and in that one case circumstances point to foul play. There appears all over the world a periodical plethora of such events. For a long time crime and misfortune will to a certain extent retire from public notice, as though exhausted, and then suddenly reappear like an epidemic and scourge and shock society to the utmost. We cannot expect always to escape the common lot of humanity, but while we regret the duty, and lament the necessity of making such records, we confess so far we see nothing indicating a disorganized state of society.