Involuntary Suicide of a Donkey at Manningtree!

I was amused by the following article reported in the Essex Newsman newspaper in 1870.

A benevolent gentleman residing at Wrabness recently presented on of his neighbours, a poor cripple, with a donkey and cart, in order that they might assist him in earning a livelihood. On Sunday last the man lent his donkey to a person for a drive to Manningtree, who on his arrival there tied it to a tree in Mr Viall’s yard. During his absence the animal, in attempting, as it is believed to brush off the numerous flies which were tormenting it, got its fore foot entangled in the halter, and the weight of its body caused such a pressure on the windpipe that when the man in charge returned a few minutes later he found the donkey quite dead from strangulation. A mock inquest on the body was held at one of the inns in the town, when a verdict was returned of “Involuntary suicide caused by the visitation of flies.”