JEALOUSY AND SUICIDE. TRAGEDY IN MELBOURNE. (From the Argus of 20th December.)

Evening Post, Volume XII, Issue 154, 30 December 1875, Page 2

JEALOUSY AND SUICIDE. TRAGEDY IN MELBOURNE. (From the Argus of 20th December.)

A shocking tragedy was enacted in Flinders Lane last evening. A man named John Makiwitz, stated to be a native of P^ntzic, and about 42 years old, who, it is' said at one time kept the Empire Hotel in Hotham, but had latterly been employed in some capacity at St. George's Hall, and was in very straitened circumstances, was married a year ago yesterday to a young woman, but they did not live happily together. The woman, who is rather goodlooking, states that he was very jealous of her, and ill-treated her soon after marriage and subsequently. They lived together, however, till about a week ago, when the woman ran away from him, and took a house at 135 Little Flinders-street east, not far from the Detective Office. It appears from what follows that the woman gave him cause for jealously, and that brooding over this he came to the determination to kill himself in her presence, in order that she might ever after be haunted by the horror of his death. Yesterday morning he went to his wife's house and got a sovereign from her, for the purpose, as he said, of taking out of pawn a great coat and some shirts preparatory to going up the country with a hawker, but in reality it appears for the purpose of buying a pistol and ammunition with which to kill himself. The woman was very much frightened by his manner then. At about six o'clock in the evening he returned and knocked at the door, and was let in by a little boy, who, after opening the door, went out the back way. The man walked into the bed-room where his wife was, and looked at her in such a terrible manner that she crouched against the bed, and implored his mercy. He struck her, and then showed a pistol, and pointing out that he had twisted round his finger a lock of the woman's hair, pushed her suddenly backward upon the bed. She screamed, and at the same instant . felt something life a puff of wind pass over her head, a loud explosion, and fainted. On recovering she saw the man lying, dead across the bed in a pool of blood, and his brains scattered over the bed and floor. She gave an alarm, and Constable Slattery being fetched by a boy, went to the place. He found the man lying on his back on the floor in a pool of blood, the left side of his head blown away, and his brains scattered about. The sight was a. horrible one. The man seemed to have fired the- pistol into his mouth. His left eye, the left side of his face and head, and

all the inside of the head were blown away, and the bulk of the brain was lying in a lump in the centre of the bed. Beside his left hand was a small singlebarrelled pistol, and near his right hand was a letter. The wife of the deceased, Alice Makiwitz, said that the man tried to shoot her first, but from the contents of the letter it does not appear that he had any intention of killing her, but that he succeeded in doing exactly what he wished, namely, shooting nimself over the woman's living body. The woman said the man's name was Mankovich, but the name was spelt by the police as given above. ; The tragic event naturally caused considerable excitement in the neighbourhood, and a great many ~ people assembled in Flinders-lane and wished to see the corpse, but the police in charge of course admitted no one except those who had business in the place. The body remains at the house pending an inquest.