AWFUL TRAGEDY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3483, 5 September 1882, Page 4

AWFUL TRAGEDY.

BURNED IK A LIME KILK,

A melodramatist in search of a sensation might have found in the London Probate Ceurt, on Tuesday, July 11th, one exceeding in horror even the ghastly trial of Matthias in the 'Bells' for the murder of the Polish Jew. It was not a trifle that there should be brought into court as evidence in a will case a bag of human bones. If or could a more curdling observation have fallen from the bench than Sir James Hannen's refusal to look at tho bones, on the ground that he could not tell that they were the bones of the testator. What was much more tragic, however, was the account given of the last visible trace (always excepting the body) of the person whose death, it was sought to have ' presumed' by the court. It appeared that the deceased had a habit of walking at night. On one particular night he went out and did not return. His family were unable to get any tidings of him in the morning. They issued an advertisement, and presently learnt that an elderly man answering his description had hired a cab and rode in it to a mill, close to which aro lime kilns. The cabman recognised a photogragh of the deceased gentleman as one of the men who took that ride toHullwell Mill, and a woman living close to the kilns stated that she saw a man in every way answering to the description walk towards the kilns just after he alighted from the cab. Now comes the ghastly part of the story. It was further shown that on that night the limekilns were filled with burning material, and that ■when in a limekiln the firo reaches tho surface the latter becomes white. On the next morning a man attending to tho kilns observed on ihe surface of one of them what appeared to be a dark shadow in the shape of "a man's figure. Ho summoned a police comtable, and, in presence of the latter, applied a rake to the figure. The result was that he drew from the surface of the kiln a number of bones, some copper money, two heel-plates, part of a pocket-knife, a button, and a buckle. A surgeon who examined the bones gave his opinion that they were human, but whether those of a man or of a woman he could not say. The heelplates, the pocket-knife, the buckle, and the button were proved to have belonged to Mr Murray. Such were the circumstances, as deposed to on affidavits. ' The bones were now in court.' The tale is a very dreadful one, and the filmy shadow of a burnt man floating transparently on the white surface of the burning kiln is one of the most appalling incidents in which fact ever competed in horror with morbid fiction.