MYSTERIOUS MURDER IN MADRIO. FINDING A CLUE. Prison Doors Wide Open. London, August 24.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 310, 24 October 1888, Page 4

MYSTERIOUS MURDER IN MADRIO. FINDING A CLUE. Prison Doors Wide Open. London, August 24.

The inquiries necessitated by a mysterious murder in Madrid have led to the dis eovery of a gross public scandal not unlik the detective frauds which some years back shook our belief in Scotland Yard to its foundations. In this case, however, it is a group of prison officials whose corruption has been accidentally laid bare. The affair seems to have created an immense sensation in the Spanish capital, and the local papers are full of the subject. A "Daily News" correspondent thus details the main facts : — After midnight on July Ist the police and watchmen went to get permission from the magistrate to enter the second floor of the house No. 100 in the Calie de Fuencarral, where the porter and the neighbours had heard some unu.-mal noises and noticed smoke. The judge, who is always on duty for cases of crime, went to the house, where he found the doorway and staircaso full of people. On reaching the second floor, he rang the bell, and repeatedly asked for admission, in the terms required by the law, before he ordered the door to be forced open. This was not done without some trouble and delay. The judge entered the apartment with the police, a clerk and notary, several neighbours, and the watchmen. Their attention was im- ! mediately attracted by a bad smell and i smoke proceeding from the front rooms. There they were horrified at finding the l occupant of the apartment lying dead in the alcove by her bed. The deceased lady, a woman of about thirty- five years of age, had been stabbed to death, and the assailants had attempted to burn the body. For this purpose they had heaped clothes over the lower limbs, and had poured petroleum on them, to which they had set light. The fire had charred and disfigured the lower part of the body, but had died out, leaving intact the chest and neck, which bore the marks of stabs. Bracelets were found upon the arms. In the room where the crime had been committed nothing had been touched or dis turbed. The tables, jewel cases, and the safe containing deeds, papers, bank certificates, and other stoc were in perfeo4 order. Only a careful investigation showed that blood stains on the floor and furniture had been washed away. In the course of his search the judge was not a little amazed to discover in the kitchen a servant, the only attendant of the murdered lady, and a bull-dog. The latter was evidently labouring under the effects of a strong narcotic. The servant was coolly lying on the floor of the kitchen next to the dog, and pretended that she had neither witnessed the crime nor heard the authorities knocking at the door of her mistress. She was put in prison, and has been the cause of great perplexity and embarrassment to the Crown officers. The murdered lady was a widow, who had inherited from her relations and from her husband considerable property in Cuba and Spain. She lived in modest style, with only one servant, and led a retired life, visiting but few friends and relatives. The only interest she showed was in her son, a young man of 24 years of age. her sole heir. He had given her much annoyance and trouble, as he had been leading a wild, dissipated life. He only came to her for money, and they very frequently had attracted the notice of their neighbours by the violent scene? and disputes in which, unfortunately, he forgot himself several times so far as to strike his mother. Once he was actually arrested and prosecuted for an assault upon her, and she saved him by refusing all testimony in Court. About four months ago he got into trouble, and was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, which he was undergoing on the night when the authorities dis covered the death of his mother. During his imprisonment she went to the prison to get the governor to allow him to receive food and clothing, which she sent him as often as the regulations permitted. On the morning after th» crime the prison officials communicated to young Vareia the news of his mother's death. He did not show much concern ; but he at once gave instructions for hor funeral, and ordered that no expense waß to be spared for the church rites, masses, and the interment. When asked whether his suspicions fell on anybody he declared himselt at a loss to guess who could have perpetrated such a crime. He said that his firm belief was that the servant Higinia Balagner could only have been an unwilling witness or accomplice of such a deed. This woman had been in the house of Senora Vareia for only a very short time, and had previously been in the service of the governor of the prison. Before ahe had got these situations she had kept a sort of refreshment; and eating room near the prison, and on her own confession she had been the mistress of a warder and of some noted gaolbirds. For a whole fortnight; she nearly drove the judge and the police distracted with her pretended disclosures and confessions incriminating three women and five men who were arrested. The judge had to examine more than one hundred witnesses, whose sworn evidence covered 5,000 pages. Higinia made no less than three distinct statements, which she successively retracted or modified. She at first tried to make the judge believe that she alone had killed her mistress. Then she came out with a long story about some men who had entered the house and compelled her to look on whilst they murdered and robbed her mistress. She said that they had fled after exacting from her the promise that she would set fire to and burn the body to destroy all traces of their crime and to make people fancy that death had been caused by the breaking of a petroleum lamp. One day she surprised the judge with her third explanatory statement, in which she charged the son of the murdered lady, the prisoner in the Madrid gaol, with having been the principal actor in this terrible affair. To this statement she has stuck with extraordinary tenacity, giving the minutest and most plausible details of the crime. She declared, when she was brought up and confronted with Vareia, that he had assassinated his mother, stolen the banknotes, and then threatened her with the same fate if she did not accept one thousand pesetas as the first instalment of the price for her silence. She went on to" explain how the murderer, who had two accomplices, sent her out to buy the petroleum, with which the body was to be burned by his order after he left the house at 10.45 p.m., a quarter of an hour before the porter closed the front door and put the gas out. When asked why she had not made a clean breast of all this sooner, Higinia declared'that she had been induced to mako her first statements by the governor of the prison. He wished to conceal the fact that he had let Vareia out on July 1, as he had done many a time before. This singular congestion oE the only witness of the crime immediately led to the arrest of the governor. The judge*had_her repeat her accusations before the governor, and a violent scene ensued, in which-thatofficialflewat the servant girl and -attempted to throttle

her. After five days', detention he was set ab liberty, but not allowed to resume his duties, pending further investigation. Day by day public opinion had been clawom'ing louder and louder for a thorough inquiry into the strange rumours that had gained oredence. Most people were beginning to think that grounds did exist for accusing the_ prison authorities of having permitted the accused man to go out whenever he chose to visit his mother, or to spend a day at the bull light, and his nights in revelry and riot outside his prison walls, Tho l judge and authorities, the more moderate and respectable organs of the Madrid press, and especially the friends of the Government, showed a marked unwillingness to listen to the objections which were raised against the judicial inquiries by many paperse and by popular prejudice. The governor and almost all the prison officials, and many prisoners, were found ready to swear that Varela had not left his cell on the night of July Ist, nor on any other occasion. The judge entrusted with this case was really to be pitied. He worked for fifteen to sixteen hours a day for a whole month, with very little apparent result. Abuse, raillery, criticism, harsh comments and uncharitable insinuations were heaped on his head. It was even whispered that powerful influences were brought to bear on him to oblige him to ignore the data the press was accumulating 1 to incriminate both Varela and the prison authorities. Soon persons were found to swear that they had seen Varela in the Bullring, in Cafes, and in the street on different occasions pince the day when he entered the prison to undergo his three months' detention for the robbery of a coat in April, 1888. The judge seems to have been slowly acquiring evidence that left him but little doubt that he did get out of prison on several different days before July 1. The chief difficulty was in getting evidence of his having been out between midday on July and sunrise of July 2. The judge had induced the Government to place at the head of the prison as temporary governor a retired major of gendarmes, a stem, clever old martinet. He closely watched the subordinates of his predecessor and corrected glaring abuses. This new governor soon reported that many of the prison officials showod much uneasiness and anxiety, and several were in frequent communication with the late governor. Moral pressure and persuasion were used with some of these apparently panic-stricken inferior officials, and one of them at last determined to try and save himself by turning informer. He asked for an inter view with the judge, and made a clean breast of all he knew. Then it was discovered that, like other prisoners, Jose" Varela went in and out of his Majesty's prison by day and night, in disguise or in plain clothes, by the ordinary door or by a side passage through the political department. He had been out all the afternoon and night of July 1, and had returned to prison at 4 a.m. on July 2, in a state of semi - intoxication, though he had been allowed to have as a companion one of the prison officials. It was also learnt from the official who made this confession that Varela, on returning to the piison half intoxicated, had told one fellow piipone;, who was sweeping his cell, that his mother was badly hurt, and not likely to live long. To another person in the pi ison on the same night he had distinctly declared that he had been mad enough to kill his mother. The judge at once ordered VaieJa,and the other prisoners arrested on suspicion of being his accotni plices, to be transferred to cells of close confinement, and he issued warrants for the apprehension of seven warders and officials on duty on July Ist and 2ndj Last, but not least, he issued a warrant for the arrest of the ex-governor. As he thought he could not trust him to the care of his old subordinates, he obtained the permission of the CaptainGeneral of Madrid to send him to the military prison in the old Convent of San Francisco. This judge, whose only mission in these preliminary investigations is in some sort to prepare the case for the Public Prosecutor and for the Criminal Court, who in the end decide it the persons accused are to be put on their trial, has kept his secret so well that so far not much is known of his real opinion on this extiaordinary crime. He sent the documents and his preparatory conclusions to the Court, which acts somewhat like our grand jury in criminal cases. All that is yet known is the fact that he has released all the persons accused by the servant and by the officials of tho prison who turned intormers after having first sworn a few weeks ago that they knew and had seen absolutely nothing. Higinia Balaguer and two friends of hers, who are charged with having taken an active part in the crime, are kept in prison. Vaiela has been sent for trial. Lasfc, but not least, the ex-governor of the prison will have to stand on his trial. A formidable array of witnesses will be brought forward. The case is still so obscure and so full of conflicting testimony on all sides that it excites great curiosity. With the exception of " El Dia," " La Epoca," "La Correspondencia,"' "El Emparcial," Senor Castelar's paper "El Globo," and the illustrated weeklies, almost all the other organs of the press have decided to appoint special counsel to watch the case. Somehow or other people fancy that powerful influences are being brought to bear on the magistrates [ trates and courts of justice to save Varela and the ex - governor of the Madrid prison. Never has any criminal case excited so much interest and angry discussion. The trial will hardly come off before the autumn, as the accused have only been allowed to appoint counsel to assist them this week. According to the Spanish code, they had been left entirely alone, at the mercy of the judges and authorities, and under close confinement until the judge declared his investigations complete in the preparatory stage. Now, the accused are even permitted to see their friends, and to give the press reporters all their impressions and confessions. The preliminary report covers 3,500 folio pages, and includes the sworn evidence of 210 witnesses, besides more than 20 examinations of each suspected person. The trial will not take place under the new jury law, but under the old procedure.

The minimum cost of living to a Chinaman at Round Hill, in Otago, is said to be at least" 10s a-week, though he eats nothing 1 but a little pork or bacon with his rice. An exciting walking match between Toff Lynch of Camberwell, and X H. Smith of YVestminster, took place in August in England, at Harley, on the Brighton Road. Scarcely a yard separated the men at any time during the first mile, which was covered in 6 minutes 57 seconds, Lynch leading. Both kept close together during the second mile, which occupied 7 minutes 28 seconds. Smith soon after this began to shorten his stride, and it was noticeable that he waa in difficulties, and when he had completed another 600 yards, having a stitch in his side, he fell from exhaustion, leaving Lynch to complete the remaining part of the journey alone. This hefdid with but little diminished speed, finishing well in 30 minutes 10 4-5 seconds. " \ '_