GRIM FOREST TRAGEDY.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 87, 6 January 1908, Page 9

GRIM FOREST TRAGEDY.

<*——\ A wild story of the woods was told at tho •Finijiterc Assizes at Quimper, when Franklin Biollay, a dark-browed man of fifty, was. indicted for tho wilful murder of Mmc. Fontoneau, a gamekeeper's wife. Biollay last year hired on leaso from the Count de Lavilharmois a furnished luintingbox, known as tho Manor of Coadaut, a wild and picturosquo place twenty-fivo miles from tho town of Chateaulin. Ho was accompanied by his'wife, and gained such a reputation for truculence and brutality that tho Breton peasants nick-named him tho "Wild Boar of Coadaut." Biollay fell foul of Count do Lavilharmois's gamokoper, a man named Fontoneau, and sought to get him dismissed. He failed, and set himself to mako Fonteneau's life unbearable by continual insults. At last Fontoneau summoned him, and Biollay was fined £3. Subsequently ho went, several times a day to tho gamekeeper's house, threatening to'murder him and his .wife and daughters. Meeting one of the gamekeeper's daughters in the woods lie assaulted her, for which ho was also tried in camera. Not long ago Biollay called at tho gamekeoper's cottage as dusk was falling, and beat Mmo. Fonteneau with a stick. Fontcneau ran up, and Biollay drew a revolver and tried to shoot him. After a torrific struggle the -gamekeeper got possession of tho revolver. Ho and his wife and children bnrricadcd themselves in the cottage, while Biollay wont back to tho manor. Ho returned with a double-barrollcd gun and pushed the muzzle through tho cottage window. Fontoneau ' himself cautiously approached the window to try to sccuro possession of tho gun, when suddenly Biollay succeeded in covering one of the children,' a little girl of three. "Ah!" ho screamed, "this time I •have got you. Now watch mo kill tho littlo brat." Just as he was about _t.o fire tho gamekeeper's wife throw herself in front of her child, and instantly fell dead, shot through the heart. Biollay and his wife soon aftor disappeared, but were arrested at a railway station.

Mr. Bent, the Victorian Premier, lias been an interested onlooker of the negotiations that have been proceeding between tbo Now South Wales Government and the. founder o ftlio Lithgow ironworks and the bank that has held the property. The success of tho New South Wales Government in its rolo as mediator has given him food for reflection, and when asked recently if the Victorian Government was going to take any stops to stimulate the development of the local iron industry, Mr. Bcift was constrained to remark, "We should not bo allowed. Sen tho way Palianient talked about tlio coal transaction into which wo entered." Tho Premier added' that encouragement, of tho industry might well ho undertaken in Victoria. for there were undeveloped- deposits of great possibilities. He intended entering into a contract with one of tho local steel miinul'aci.uring firms for the supply ,'of local material for State uivbrtaximn, but Parliament would have to show marked inclination to support the venturo before the broader question could be attacked in a spirit which .its iniv-'it» nce and necessity ii'.ciited.