RIGHT TO KILL A HUSBAND.

Bruce Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 21, 17 March 1913, Page 3

RIGHT TO KILL A HUSBAND.

WIFE'S ACQUITTAL,

A "wife's right to shoot a husband in sclf-defenco after he had made her life \ a torture was successfully raised as a defence in the Seine Assize Court to a charge of' murder brought against Mme. Lhoste, a handsome woman who described her married ■existence in bitter words to tho jury. The case resembles an some respocts that of Mme. Itachei Bloch, whom a jury at tho same coittrt acquitted on Christmas Eve of the< charge of murdering a woman rival to her husband's affections. Many witnesses- testified to tho unhappy relations of M. and Mme. Lhoste. His favorite maxim said one, was: "A man of the, world ought to be able to live 'wittaoufc doing any work." Daily said Mme. Lhoste, were followed "byf his proposal to give herself up to a shameful life. At last she went to live in a flat hired by her grandfather, &nd began proceedings for divorce. On July 19 her hvisband entered the flat at 10 o'clock : at night. "After taunts he told me 7i! must giVe up nry divorce petition or sign a bili for him for £4OO. I refused. He struck me. Ho took mo by tbie throat, tr.ying to strangle me. I seized a revolver, believing that it wns at kalf-coak and wishing, only to frdghten my husband, but it wont off.

"I did all I coi aid for my husband, sending for a doct or and a priest; and at that moment I would, indeed, have given all to hav>e ''Jiim." The jury acq-uii bted her, in spite of the declaration of the PuWic Prosecutor that "no ome possesses t, he right to kill a husband,, w] latever his faults." ' I - ' ■■.■■■