"Though I had no idea that he would do so I had a sympathy for him even in his dissipation. I had known him in his youth and had not the moral courage to refuse. I gave him the one hundred dollars in gold and took his note. His hand was so tremulous that he could scarcely write his name to the note legibly. I think it probable that he will never pay me. He informed me he was detained at Washington attending to some business in the Indian Office. I supposed he had returned home at the adjournment of Congress until he called to-day. I doubt whether he has any business in Washington, but fear he has been detained by dissipation." The second of Mr. Polk's entries is a corollary of the first and reads: "About dark this evening I learned from Mr. Voorhies, who is acting as my private secretary during the absence of J. Knox Walker, that Hon. Felix G. McConnell, a representative in Congress from the state of Alabama, had committed suicide this afternoon at the St. Charles Hotel, where he boarded. On Tuesday last Mr. McConnell called on me and I loaned him one hundred dollars. [See this diary of that day.] I learn that but a short time before the horrid deed was committed he was in the barroom of the St. Charles Hotel handling gold pieces and stating that he had received them from me, and that he loaned thirty-five dollars of them to the barkeeper, that shortly afterward he had attempted to write something, but what I have not learned, but he had not written much when he said he would go to his room. "In the course of the morning I learn he went into the city and paid a hackman a small amount which he owed him. He had locked his room door, and when found he was stretched out on his back with his hands extended, weltering in his blood. He had three wounds in the abdomen and his throat was cut. A hawkbill knife was found near him. A jury of inquest was held and found a verdict that he had destroyed himself. It was a melancholy instance of the effects of intemperance. Mr. McConnell when a youth resided at Fayetteville in my congressional district. Shortly after he grew up to manhood he was at my instance appointed postmaster of that town. He was a true Democrat and a sincere friend of mine. "His family in Tennessee are highly respectable and quite numerous. The information as to the manner and particulars of his death I learned from Mr. Voorhies, who reported it to me as he had heard it in the streets. Mr. McConnell removed from Tennessee to Alabama some years ago, and I learn he has left a wife and three or four children." Poor Felix Grundy McConnell! At a school in Tennessee he was a roommate of my father, who related that one night Felix awakened with a scream from a bad dream he had, the dream being that he had cut his own throat.