A SHOCKING CASE.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9023, 8 February 1895, Page 5

A SHOCKING CASE.

SUPPOSED SUICIDE OF MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.

Prejs Association—By Telegraph—Copyright Melbouene, February 7. A shocking discovery was made this week at the Railway Crescent, South Melbourne. A neighbour noticed a foul smell emanating from a small shop occupied by an elderly woman named Mrs Perkins and her daughter. The door was broken in and the mother was found sitting in a chair and the daughter lying at her feet. Both the bodie3 were decomposing and in the centre of the room was a dish of charcoal, and they had evidently committed suicide. Nothing had been seen of them since Friday. Both wero educated people, the daughter being a music teacher, but they were in poor circumstances and the mother had on several occasions informed the neighbours that they had not known where to get food. They lately received aid from the Benevolent Society. A pathetic letter was found written by the daughter asking God's forgiveness for the deed she was going to commit. They were deeply in debt, and she could not bear to see turned into the streets. Mrs Perkins once possessed a considerable sum of money, but lost it in a Bank failure. At tho inquest on the bodies of Mrs and Miss Perkins, South Melbourne, the medical testimony went in ! the direction of dispelling the theory J that both died together, or about the same time. The evidence adduced alleges that the mother had been dead fully seven days, while her daughter could not have been dead moro than two days. The stomach of the mother is being analysed for traces of poison.