HE was heartbroken, so infatuated with a woman who had scorned his love in favour of another he wanted to kill her and himself, writing in a farewell note: "Had it been not for your pitiful and pleading looks this morning, your body and mine would be cold by this time."

Signing his letter, Frederick Simmons swigged laudanum and laid down to die - and would have done but for the woman who had jilted him.

Mary Smith, who lived a few doors away in Brewhouse Lane, Southampton, had known him for two years, and 12 months into their burgeoning relationship accepted his proposal of marriage.

But it was never to be.

She fell in love with a naval carpenter who she subsequently married.

The distraught Simmons often visited her afterwards but she had not seen him for a fortnight when he returned from London drunk.

Feeling sorry for him, she agreed to go out for a walk and they had reached the Audit House when he suddenly removed the cork from two bottles. He drank the contents of one and threw the other at her, smashing it.

"I ran away frightened," she said. "He followed me, blew out the light at his home and drank out of another bottle which he threw on to the floor. He said he had done it because I got married."

Simmons fell sleep and fearful she called the police and their surgeon Dr Palk instructed her and a neighbour to sit with him and keep him awake. At 4am he seemed better and they left.

Smith returned the following afternoon when Simmons insisted they should have a drink together but after she refused, he said 'Good-bye'.

Fraught, Smith again saw the neighbour and when she returned to his house, she could not rouse him and immediately called the police again.

Pc Strange found him lying unconscious on a bed in the front room. After he had been rushed to hospital, the officer searched his room and under his hat found two empty bottles labelled 'Poison - laudanum," which he had bought the previous day from a St Mary's Street chemist on the pretext of having toothache, and a glass smelling strongly of the same substance.

In a jacket pocket, Strange discovered a note clearly stating his intention: "My life is a burden and I cannot live. Do not think me as insane. I am in a rational state of mind. I love a girl dearly. All too dearly because she has basely deceived me and has married a man who was already married and had a child."

Another letter addressed to Smith blamed her for his suicide bid: "You have been my ruin by misleading me. Had it not been for your pitiful and pleading looks this morning, your body and mine would have dead by this time."

Further inquiries revealed Simmons had also written a letter to her husband, accusing him of being "an unprincipled scoundrel" and which ended: "May my curse follow you for causing my ruin and death."

His emotional state was exposed at Southampton Quarter Sessions in 1886 when the 24-year-old well educated clerk admitted attempting to take his own life

"No one but myself knows what I have gone through," he bemoaned when asked what had to say in his defence.

The judge, Recorder Stonehouse-Vigor, feared for his safety if left alone: "Where is your father, where are you friends?"

All he would reveal was that his father lived in London.

"I do not wish to give his address for having got myself into this scrape, I do not want my relatives dragged into it but I will try and get out of it myself."

Urging the court to take a merciful stance, his barrister C T Giles said Simmons had promised he would never reconsider suicide.

"If liberated from this charge, he will give his word as a gentleman and not act like this again but return to London to see his friends as soon as he leaves this place."

However, the judge said he was forced to pass a deterrent sentence.

Jailing him for four months with hard labour: "I must do what I can to prevent such men from committing crimes of this sort. You must undergo punishment and during that time I hope you will consider that it will be wise for you to get clear of your entanglement with this woman."

BLOB The previous day, the town's magistrates had told of another near tragic story when a young woman slit her throat in shame.

Ironically her accuser had only been too grateful to Sarah Hayter for tending her during an illness but suspected she had stolen items from her husband.

Sarah Tizzard had no wish to bring in the police and issued her with an ultimatum: "If you get these things and replace them, I'll forgive you but you must not leave my house. I will give you two hours to make up your mind and tell the truth and if not I will give you in charge."

Hayter thought about for several minutes before approaching Tizzard to admit she had taken two shirts and torn up irreplaceable tickets. With that, she bolted upstairs.

Knowing she had acted out of character and was worried about her husband who she had not seen for several days after setting off for the Isle of Wight for work as a bricklayer, Tizzard went to her room to make peace.

Instead she was confronted by a horrific sight - the maid sitting on a box with her throat bleeding.

As Hayter sat in the dock accused of attempted suicide, Tizzard told the Bench how she was indebted to her.

"For the last six weeks I have been ill. She has waited on me and has been very kind."

After her aunt promised to look after her, the court treated Hayter with leniency and discharged her with a caution.