CRIME IN AUSTRALIA. STRANGE SCENE AT A MURDER TRIAL.

Evening Post, Volume XLII, Issue 92, 15 October 1891, Page 4

CRIME IN AUSTRALIA. STRANGE SCENE AT A MURDER TRIAL.

MURDER BY AN AUSTRALIAN BLACK A YOUNG POSTMISTRESS' EMBEZZLEMENT. |Bt Telegraph.) (Our Own Correspondent. J {PER B.S. TEKArO AT THB MtiUSP.I SyDNBT, Bth Ootobor. At tho Central Criminal Court, Sydnoy, on tho sth instant, Maurice Dalton Was found Guilty of murdering his wife, Catherine Dalton, by battoring in her head with a branding: iron. Hft Honour concluded his summing up, and half an hour afterwards tho jnry returned a verdict of guilty, and tho prisoner was tsontehced to death. Throughout tho trial Dalton displayed the most stolid indifferenoo to nil that was going tfn aroivnd him, and when sentence of death had been passed npon him he calmly informed tho Judge that he was hard of hearing, and had not heard what had been said. His Honour repeated the Benteneo in a louder voice, but even then the man showed no symptoms of emotion. About 1854 he was tried at Bathurst for tolling a policeman at Mudgoo by striking him on the head with & stick. Ho was then found guilty of manslaughter, and sontenoed to five years' penal servitude. An Inquest Was hold at Dalhousio Springs, South Australia, on the body of Thomas Home, who was murdered on 25th September by an aboriginal named Tommy. The evidence showed that Homo had takon bossossion of Tommy's lubra. Tho aboriginal crept up to Homo's ravmp at daylight and struok him on the head with a stick, killing him almost immediately . He confessed the onme, and when arrested by tho oonstablo stated it was Homo's own fault, because ho took his lubra. The jury brought ih a verdict to the effect that Tommy murdered Home in cold blood and a premeditatod manner. A-yonng postmistress, Margaret Lavary, aged 18, near Goelong, has been charged embezzling .£63 belonging to tho Postal Department. She pleaded Guilty and was released on probation for twelvo months.