In April 1732, Richard Smith, an impoverished London bookbinder, and his wife Bridget shot their two-year-old daughter, went to their rooms, and hanged themselves. In a suicide letter they explained, “It was an inveterate Hatred we conceiv’d against Poverty and Rags; Evils that through a Train of unlucky Accidents were become inevitable; we appeal to all that ever knew us whether we were either idle or extravagant, … and we state that we have taken as much trouble to earn our living as any of our neighbors; but our cares have not had the same success