A Fearful Murder.

Hastings Standard, Issue 440, 1 October 1897, Page 4

A Fearful Murder.

French judges in Tunis have had to deal with one of the most terrible tragedies, due to Italian vengeance, ever recorded. A few years since a young Italian schoolmistress, named Marietta Bertolini, received the addresses of a dashing person, who called himself Prince Giulio de Belmonte. This man ousted a young Sicilian, called Voltone, who had been in Marietta's good graces. The selfstyled Prince spoke of his palaces and gardens, which only existed in his imagination, like those described by Claude Melnotte for the sighing PaulineDeschapelles. He talked of unbounded wealth, of houses in Paris and yachts at Cowes. The upshot of this was that Marietta Bertolini left her father's house, taking with her a sum of 2000 francs, and went to live with the adventurer outside Tunis. The false Prince spent her money, and then said that he had to go to Italy in order to raise funds. In the meantime Marietta's friends discovered that the socalled Prince de Belmonte was a common Sicilian adventurer who was badly wanted by the gendarmes in his own country. The girl on hearing this* became frantic with rage, and vowed a vigorous vengeance on the man who had dishonored and deceived her. She first had recourse to her old discarded lover, Voltone, who agreed to do what she wanted, and induced a friend of his named Piazza to join him. Piazza, a bad character, made his son enter the conspiracy, and the three men waylaid Belmonte one night near a spot called the Carthage Aqueduct. Simone Piaxxa, the father, cut open Belmonte's head with a billkook, while the others held the Sicilian's arms. .Then Veltone cut the man's throat, and the Piaxxas took the watch and chain which the Sicilian was wearing, as well as his purse. Voltone next severed the bead comp'etely from the body, cut off the hands, and threw the mutilated trunk into a will. The h;ad and hands be wrapped in a towel and j carried to Marietta Bertolini, who looked foe awhile at the ghastly buu-

die with fiendish satisfaction. Then she took off her stays and gave their laces to Voltone, who securely tied with them the head and hands, which were subsequently buried among some vines. The next operation was to open Belmonte's boxes, from which Marietta Bertolini took out a heap of love letters and photographs of women, which she furiously tore up and then burned. Piazza and his son, true to their instincts as robbers, divided between them the clothes and boots of the ill-fated adventurer, whom they had regarded as a real Prince, and were surprised when they found that so high a personage left very little property behind him. Next day some natives discovered the mutilated body, but it was not until some eighteen months afterwards that the crime was traced. This was brought about by the fact that one of the Piazzas offered the sham Prince's watch for sale ; and on being pressed as to where he obtained it, made a full confession of the murder. The criminals have been tried, with the result that Marietta Bertolini is once more a free woman, the jurors having been moved in her favor. The elder Piazza and Yoltone were sent to penal servitude for life ; and the youngest of the criminals, who assisted his father, is to go to prison for two years.