Sheffield Evening Telegraph June 24, 1909

Desperate Attempt at Suicide
Bolton Girls Domestic Trouble

Domestic trouble caused a girl named Elizabeth Mason, of Bolton on Dearne, to attempt to hang herself on Wednesday.

The facts were stated at the West Riding Court at Doncaster today. Florence Mason, the girl’s sister, said she was a domestic servant, at present living with her father as she was out of a situation. She came home on Monday. They had no mother, and her sister had been keeping house for their father. She and her sister and not got on well together.

They had a quarrel on Wednesday afternoon because witness had come home, and prisoner said she would make away with herself. She got a piece of skipping rope out of the back kitchen and went upstairs. Witness, following a, found her sitting on the bed, and becoming alarmed, she went for their neighbours, Mrs Bailey and Mrs Ward. On returning they found the defendant in a dazed condition.

Asked if she had anything to ask her sister, the prisoner said to her: You told me you would give me a hiding.

Mrs Bailey, a neighbour, said that she found the girl underneath the bed, with a rope tied several times round her neck. She was fashioned to the bedside, was black in the face and foaming at the mouth and nostrils. She was quite unable to speak. Witness unfastened the rope, and the girl came round a few minutes. Asked why she had done such a thing she said it was through a sister telling lies to her father. The girl told witness she would do it again.

The girl’s father said her grandfather hanged himself.

Prisoner was handed over to her father, who was told to look after her.