CANADA.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9019, 4 February 1895, Page 6

CANADA.

F. G. Aahford, {charged with the wilful murder of his wife and child, before a coroner's jury in Victoria, 8.C., on December 28th, belongs to the nobility of England. According to a dispatch of the same date the Victorian people noted the education and refinement of Ashford, who has been engaged for five yeara in wheeling a freight truck on the Canadiau-Pdcific railroad wharves, and wondered at the cultivated tastes of his wife, who was providing for a family of six children on Idol 50c a day. Ashford will not givse his correct! name, but it is hinted he is of royal.descent. 'JLhroogh misfortune or disgrace he changed his name, married an officer's daughter, and joined the British army us a private. The names of Ashford's ancestry will be brought out on his trial and bis private papers liave been examined. He is a graduate of Cambridge University. Just before the murder Ashford spoke of an annuity being settled on him by parties in England. A second despatch, of December 50th, concerning this colonial romance, is to; the effect that Aehford's ideutity had been partly discovered by his private papers. " Those papers ehow that Aauford's Bister is a marchioness, her maiden name boing Elizabeth Flowers, Ashford'a real name is Geo. Fredk..Flowers. The papers and letters disclose the fact that tho Flowers family was possessed of great wealth, and that a sister of the murderer willed to Ethel Flowers, his second daughter, a large estate in England. She camo into her estate on her eighteenth birthday. This accounts for Ashford's remark, " When I am gono all but Elhel will have to beg on the streets," also for his attempt to shoot everyone of his children but Ethel. Oα the 30c.1i, Ashford was reprimanded by the gaol officials for resenting some prison discipline, when he said indignantly," You fellows will find out who I am before this trial is over." Ashford, it appears, disgraced his family by a secession of wild spreos and squandering Vis tortuue. . As ho was a prominent Cambridge graduate, and one of the leaders in English aristocratic society,. his actions created scandal, and, as diegrace followed some of his escapades, he concluded to sink his identity. He dropped bis titled friends and - old associations, and became a common soldier, join ~ig.the Royal Irish fnsihers under the name of Ashtord, and marrying the daughter of the farrier of the regiment, who knew his past, and was willing to overlook everything.