of considerable and varied reading; and, but for an unfortunate inattention to his general practice, arising from the dangers into which he was led by the indulgences of his goodheartedness, as it is commonly called, and his thoroughly social character, he might have stood well in his profession at this day. Few equalled him in natural mental power, and fewer still who excelled him (in his better days) in ready wit and conversational ease. His name will ever be associated in Hastings with the Reform movement in the earlier part of his residence here, and with many a political jeu d'esprit by which several of our old elections were amusingly enlivened. Had he been as true to himself as he was to many of his old friends, Mr. Baker might now have been one of the leading and most useful men in the borough De mortius nil misi bonum. His four children are said to be in America.
Melancholy Suicide. The Town Clerk, John Goldsworthy Shorter Esq., after six years of severe suffering from paralysis of the lower limbs and other complaints, shot himself while in bed on the 19th of August while of unsound mind. An inquest was held as a matter of course, but the verdict was a foregone concluson of "Temporary Insanity." Often have I seen the sufferer during his long illness wheeled to his duties at the Town Hall by his attendnant, James Weston, the steps being ascended by means of a wooden frame to form an easy gradient. The melancholy death of this gentleman was described in the Hastings News thus:- "It is our painful duty to record one of the saddest local events it has ever been our lot to chronicle. John Goldsworthy Shorter, Esq., with whose long and painful illness most of our readers are acquainted, has abruptly terminated his sufferings and his life by an act of suicide. We need to be at no loss to find the approximate of this unhappy event when we consider the depressing and exhausting tendency of the severe affliction which the deceased gentleman has had to endure the last six years. In that gradual weakening of body and mind - a body and mind, both in former days noted for their vigour and firmness - which is so constant a drain on the vital energies as this illness must have occasioned, a probable cause of fits of mental aberration, will be readily recognised by all who have been accustomed to study the connection of mental phenomena with physical influences. Mr. Shorter's peculiar fitness, from the strength of his natural intelligence and the character of his acquired knowledge, for the management of Corporation business, procured for him several public appointments of trust and re-
