ALLEGED MURDERER'S KISS.

Mataura Ensign, 6 July 1910, Page 7

ALLEGED MURDERER'S KISS.

William Armitt, ex-soldier and cor-jxH-ation workman, was sent for trial at Hanlcy on May 25 on the charge of murdering his wife. The evidence for the prosecution was that they had been separated, but came together again on the Mondav, on which day they had a party at their daughter's house, "to celebrate the ne.v wedding." At this party the tragedy occurred. Two days previously the accused in conversation, a witness stated said : "I shan't be happy till I've met my wife. I shall put my arms around her neck and kiss her, then cut her head off and kill her." Mrs Latham, daughter of the deceased woman, at whose house the party took place, stated that before the murder an organ played outside the house and Armitt and her mother danced to the music. James Astbury said he heard Armitt ask his wife for a kiss. They stood up and kissed, and immediately after he saw Mrs Armitt lying on the floor dead.

The son of the deceased said he was entering the house with beer and saw his father in the act of cutting his mother's throat with a bread-knife. TRAGEDY OF AVARICE. Inquiry will be made at Kidderminster to-day into the death of a mother and daughter, aged seventy-five and forty-five, who died shortly after being found emaciated and starving in their home, though it was known that the mother, an old-age pensioner, had £SOO in a bank and she was suspected of owning other property. When removed she fought for the possession of a bag tied round her neck which contained £7. Not a scrap of cooked food ■ was found in the house, and they seem to have purchased their last loaf four weeks ago. STEEPLEJACK'S 300 ft FALL. A Derby steeplejack, Arthur Hunt, was on May 25 engaged with two other men in repainting and repairing a chimney 300 ft high adjoining the chem • ical works of Messrs Adley, Tolkein, and Co., at Blackburn, when the cop-ing-stone on which he was working fell without warning, carrying him with it. The stone weighed two or three hundredweight, and it crashed through a strong iron bridge connecting different parts of the wqrks. Hunt was picked up dead, practically every bone in his ! body being broken. His companions, who were much upset by the occurrence, descended immediately by ladders. GLASGOW-PARIS TELEPHONE. Glasgow can v now speak with Paris, by telephone. This result, the greatest achievement in modern telephonv, has been rendered possible by a new type of cable invented by Mr Dieselhorst, which has just been laid from Dover to Cape Grisnez, The ordinary form of cable renders submarine telephony exceedingly difficult, reducing the speaking efficiency of j the line and limiting the audibility of \ messages. , But in, the Dieselhorst i cable' "loading" coils of iron are intro- , dueed at short distances, Avith the - e-1 suit that messages can be twice as j plainly heard as on the old type. The j total length of the cable is twenty-four . miles and the weight 275 tons.

SCHOOL PUNISHMENTS,

The Willesden magistrate granted a summons to a woman against the headmistress ..f a Church school.

She alleged that because her lad played- truant the mistress caned hin:. ten times, tied him to a table for two hours, and then bound him tightly to a form with his arms crossed and kept him in that position for another two hours. At one o'clock the teacher sent home for t.'ie boy's dinner, asd when the applicant took it she found him tightly bound to the form, and unable to move. She released him and took him home.

AN OLD CEREMONY

Before his enthronement at Norwich recently the new bishop, Dr Pollock, had from the outside to give three loud knocks at the cathedral's closed door, and to the dean's question, "What do you desire?" answered: "Humble entrance into this Cathedral Church of the holy and undivided Trinity." The door was opened, and the ceremony, attended by 300 clergy, proceeded.