If the body be not suspended, but touches, more or less, the ground or floor, while the cord is not tight enough for the purpose of strangulation, and there be no manifestations of any other means of death, there can hardly be room to doubt as to self-murder. It is true that the mere resting of the toes takes away but little of the character of suspension, but we may meet with stronger cases. A few years ago, a man, aged seventy-five, destroyed himself at Castle Cary, in the morning, by fixing a cord round his neck while sitting on the bed-side, and leaning forward till his purpose was accomplished. His wife, who had for years been bedridden, and was therefore not likely to have been very fast asleep, was in the room during the transaction, and knew nothing of what was going on. A prisoner hung himself in a gaol by fastening the cord to one of the window-bars, and pushing himself away from it with his arm. Persons have both wounded and hung themselves. This may be effected by placing the cord in a wrong position, which would protract the person’s sufferings, and compel him to struggle and make violent efforts to kill himself. Ballard relates, that a young priest, having first cut his throat to a certain extent, hung himself with his robe.[69] In cases like these there can be little difficulty in ascertaining the real cause of death. In a memoir published in a French journal,[70] there are related several instances of self-destruction by hanging, where the bodies were found in the most extraordinary positions and attitudes. A man was discovered in a granary hanging by a cotton handkerchief, made fast to a rope which stretched across; the knees were bent, so that the legs formed a right angle backwards; the feet were suspended on a heap of grain, over which the knees hung at a distance of a few inches. A prisoner was found suspended in a vertical position, with his heels resting on a window-stool. An Englishman, a prisoner in Paris, hung himself in his cell, which was an apartment with an arched roof, and at the lower part of it was a grated window, the highest part of which was not near the height of a man. Nevertheless, he hung himself to this grating, and was found almost sitting down, with his legs stretched out before, and his hips within a foot and a half of the ground. Another case is related of a man whose attitude was similar to the case first described. He had suspended himself to a large iron pin driven into the wall to support the bed-curtains, and his feet, bent at a right angle, rested on the bed, while his knees approached it within a few inches. A female suspended herself so low that, in order to accomplish her purpose, she was obliged to stretch out her legs, one before resting on the heel, the other behind resting on the toes. A female was found stretched at the foot of her bed, the legs, thighs, and left hip lying on the floor; the upper part of the body was raised, and suspended by a