London, Mar. 5, An Interesting description of the word "exhibitionist" was given to~ day by the Westminster Coroner at the inquest on Mr. Desmond Charles Joseph. McSweeney, an acting prin-ipal at the Colonial Office.
"An "exhibitionist," the Coroner said, was aman who wished to fatiract'attention and sympathy to himself.
MeSweeney, who was 31 years of age, and who had. attained distineton as a scholar at Cambridge, took 24 tablets of a sleeping draught in West End club while a woman feienc was waiting for him in a taxi-cab outside.
When he rejoined her, he told her what he had done. They immediately drove to Harley Street and then to hospital, where McSweeney died from the effects of the overdose.
Giving evidence at the inquest, the woman stated that she had previously gone to Paris with a friend on the strength of a telephone all from McSweeney, who was then staying in the French capital.
She was greatly alarmed at Me-'Sweeney's conversation as he gave her the impression that he was going to kill himself. She and her friend managed to reach him in time, how-fever, and brought him back to London on Sunday, but he committed ssulelde on Monday.
The Assistant Under-Secretary of State at the Colonial Oflice told the Coroner that McSweeney had had a brilliant career. He had served for two years in Uganda, then under the Secretary of State and Sir Samuel Wilson and had also worked in various departments of the Colonial and Dominions Omices.
Tt was shown during the evidence that McSweeney, whose mother had algo committed suicide some time ago, had been divorced by his wite. He was uncertain concerning the attitude of the woman with whom was in love and had_ previously "staged" suicide in order to attract her attention, "The Coroner, in returning a verdict of "suicide while of unsound mind," escribed MeSweeney as_an "exhibi-Hlonist" and gave his definition of the term—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.