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Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 183, 2 August 1913, Page 17

ARISTOCRATIC MURDERERS. A sensational trial has been concluded at St. Petersbnrg, In which Alexander Do-ma-toff and Baron He-smar, two young men at well known air-stocra.tic families, were charged with tailing a woman, named Th-eme. The motive of the alleged crime was robbery. The woman was known to posses, extremely valuable jewellery. Dolmatoff has been sentenced to 17 years" penal servitude, and'Heis-oar to* 15 years' penal servitude. - - ■• _ A JUST HUSBAND. The wife of a French gendarme at Chateau Salins (Meurthe) accidentally killed her baby by-giving it a fatal dose of acid used by her husband to clean his equipment, mistaking it for castor oil. When she Informed her husband of the fact he arrested ber for manslaughter by imprudence, and then (says the London "Mail" correspondent) gave himself up to the authorities as having contributed to the mishap by his own negligence in leaving the acid exnosed-. EHTTRE VILLAGE ARRESTED. The little village of Orgosolo, in. Sardinia, has (says a Home correspondent) been occupied by a company of infantry and a force of carabineers, and the wbole of the-population is practically under arrest. These rigorous measures are the outcome of a veritable-epi-demic of crime which has broken out in the village as a sequel to the murder of the brother of the village cure, whose name is Cossu. The persons accused of this murder were brought to trial, but all were acquitted. -Iv the next few days eight persons were assassinated, and others received warning that they were marked out for vengeance. The antliortttes have failed entirely to trace the origin of these decrees of death, and In the meanwhile the cure, Cossu, has himse-t been poisoned. A MONTE CRISTO FRI-nTHER. An armed man named Georges Boucher, who bad four times escaped from custody in a daring manner, has been arrested ta Paris. CaUed up in 1900 for military service in Algiers, he behaved mutinously and was imprisoned in the barrack cells, whence he escaped and came to Paris, where he was rearrested. While on the way back to Algiers he was confined for a few days in the prison of St. Jean at Marseilles, a mediaeval castle. During exercise on the ramparts, which are 100 ft above the sea. he dived into the water, missing the rocks by a few inches; Then he swam under water, avoiding the bullets of the warders, and escaped. This feat earned for turn .-___ name of "Monte Crlsto." "CT-YIMG CITCIiISTS." Over fifty machines were compet-ns la. Paris on June 15th for a prize of £400 for a flight of ten yards. None was found to win it, for it was a condition of the contest that the machine should be propelled by the force of human nmsclea alone. The competition, the second of its kind, -_-_s intended to help to evolpe the flying bicycle. ■• Vigorously pedalled by their Bang-nine inventors, all sorts of cm-ious machines came hurtling along the cement track at the Pare dcs Princes, but each failed igno- ] minionsiy to leave the ground. I One original design consisted of a bare ' framework mounted on .a bicycle. The inventor pedalled at a great speed along the track, and, on reaching the place marked for the ten yards* leap, polled, a lever, which instantly expanded a linen plane along his framework after the manner of a spring blind. At this point he should have soared into the air. Instead tho machine veered wildly round and fell forward on its nose immediately in front of a cinematograph .camera. There it remained for some minutes, with the legs ot the inventor, who was strapped to Ms seat, waving to and fro in the air amid the roars of laughter from the crowd. •There were other air-cycles with white, beating wings, like flapping pocket hand-; kerchiefs, and one model in -which the ingenious airman ran along with his plane mounted all round him, working a sort of sewing machine engine with his hands. Ia trying to avoid a dog he came to grief. After so many failures an enthnsiastlc burst of applause rewarded the most successful performance of the day. -when, the back wheel of one aero-cyclist left *t_i ground for a clear three yards. SENSATIONAL CRIME IN AUSTRIA. There has just been concluded In Vlem-— a trial which, occupying the attention of the jury for upwards of a week and necessitating the examination of more than ar hundred witnesses, ranks as one of tiie most aston'siting criminal records of the past half-century. On January 20 last year Alois Sautner, aged 78 years, a former burgormaster of Rannersdorf, a village not far from Vieima, was found dead with many knife wounds in his body iv one of tiie two rooms ■wnicll he occupied in his old family home, which had been given over by him to his son Hcinrich. The old man's boxes had been broken open, and his money and valuables, were missing. Common opinion suggested that J the murderer would be found within the household. ...... Heinricli Sautner was a--drunkard. Hla Iwife, Barbara, nicknamed "The Devil," was ' known as a greedy, quarrelsome perso-. -w-io Incited hex rhnsband against his father. | Three days after the discovery of the I crime an odonr of burning clothing wa* observed coming from the Santner establishment, and the arrest of Helnrich followed. I First swearing his innocence, the prisoner subseouently made statements in criminating his wife and: Gnstav Paulinesek, a workman jwio lodged with Sautner's sister. Both were arrested. Both asserted! their innocence, and Helnrich Sautner recanted. -uVI ; confesG-ozu Nearly a month. later Paul Wagner. another workman, made a statement of a sensational character to the authorities respecting "bis lodger, a youth of 2S years named Andreas Nowak. This statement was to the effect that Wagner's wife, profiting by the temporary absence of JJowak, liad entered ibis room* and there found a number of bank-ootes wrapped In linen packed into a boot. Flan Wagner told her husband of this, and lie questioned Nowak, wliose ■pallor betrayed guilty knowledge. Asked •wiether he murdered Santner, Nowak answered, "Tcs. I alone. •• NowaJk Is x-esa-pded in his v-Uag-e as ______ ■wi-ted, One day was devoted to the reconstruction of the ciime. Then in the room •wherein old Sautner met Ids death three <rf the pdamera stoutly a-serted their innocence. •wrMlst Nowrak repeated' his con-d_-__t__r____t of M_______ and bis companions. .my. after giving two and a-half Iwins to tbe -_cn_tf__r*t,on of their verdict, fouled tiie four prisoners guilty in. -Ifferent decree-, and the following sentences were paaeed: Nowak to be tanged, Barbara Santaer to be Inrprisoned for twelve j-ears-SM-Bd labour, and He-uric-. Santner and P_.nl_.-Be_; each to nine years' Sard labour.