CRIMES IN BOXES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 9271, 5 August 1893, Page 2 (Supplement)

CRIMES IN BOXES.

SOME STORIES OF FAMOUS MURDKRS.

Onck again in the history of criminal proceedings, with their sensational episodes of extraordinary discoveries, a trunk has played a conspicuous part, although not so horrifying a one as in other case?, says a London correspondent of the New oik Sun. A singularly melodramatic incident was imported into the unending Panama prosecutions by the discovery of 'he box of the notorious Art on and its delivery into the hands of French ollicials by the Roumanian Government. The adventures of this remarkable person, of this mysterious and invisible Arton, arc more than romantic; they savour of the fantastical and fabulous, and do nut seem to appertain to our prosaic fin <l<; sitdz. Flying once more before the tracking detectives sent to Bucharest to seize his person, he contrived— hen nearly trapped—to evade his captors, but he was compelled to abandon his luggage, and a portion of it contained the evidence required against him and others. The papers lound in the carefully locked and corded box were of a nature to somewhat compensate for the disappointment caused by his escape. The now historic trunk is qualified to take a place with many others whose record, if more tragical, had no greater importance, for it. is with Arton as with the men who, having excited public curiosity by .some deeds of daring or audacity, are immediately surrounded by an atmosphere of legends and fables. Probably before the present instance tho trunk on which the latest interest fastened was Michael Hyraud's, the accomplice of the wretched woman 15 imparl, who packed the body of his victim in an ordinary travelling box and sent it as such to Lyons. He had not invented this simple method of disposing of mutilated remains, for over a century ago—in February, 1777—a little old man of peaceful demeanour, wearing, according to the fashion of tho day, a violet co.it and knee breeches, and carrying a respectable gold-headed cane, was seen walking in the neighbourhood of the Hotel de Vilie, in Paris, apparently looking up at the houses in quest of some particular sign or number.

fie stopped at lust before a printed advertisement intimating that there was a cellar to let on the premises. He interviewed the proprietor, a woman ; settled the terms of the rent; demanded immediate possession ; and the following morning, having .previously stilted that lie required the cellar to store some Spanish wine, he returned, followed by a truck, on which stood a cask and a big box in a linen wrapper. These goods he had carried into t!i.- cellar, which lie locked, and took away .lie key. Shortly after it was rumoured that a certain Dame de la Motte, the widow of a former employe in the stable of the Queen, had disnppe ired. hen hist seen this lady occupied rooms in the house of a respectable grocer, to whom she had just sold a property she possessed in the country. This grocer, called De-rues, was quite unexpectedly accused by one of his creditors of being the same man who had hired a cellar near the Hotel de Ville ; that lie had dropped into it a huge trunk, and never gone near the place again. These facts were substantiated by the proprietress of the cellar, and seemed to justify the public prosecutor in ordering the premises to be searched. The police found the box half hidden in the darkest part of the cellar ; and on being forced open it contained the unclothed body of a woman whose head had been wrapped in oilcloth. Mine, de la Motte was identified by her earrings. Desrues had poisoned her in order to avoid paying the purchase money, He made a full confession, and was racked on the Place de (ireve. In 1 SOS a butcher of Mclun called Lespinois lured a man to whom he owed money into a remote, solitary spot, and having him fairly in his power bled him as he was wont to bleed his oxen, and packed him in the sort of case in which lie forwarded goods to Paris, labelling it "Salt meat." The oiheers of the octroi, however, detected something unusual ; and inquiries led to the discovery of the murderer, who was condemned and hanged. ft. was in a trunk of English manufacture that in 1817 the body of a wealthy banker of Marseilles wa< found. He had left the city for a journey, credited with having on him a large sum of money, in the company of two foreigners who were never heard or seen since, and, if guilty of murder, they escaped punishment. In ISM the authorities of Lille were informed that a woman named Klootz, the wife of a journeyman, was missing. The husband's domicile was searched. During the proceedings lie remained quietly seated on a corded box smoking a pipe, and on being interrogated on what could have happened to his wife, he repeated slowly and placidly that surely she could not be very far. He spoke the truth so far that she was at the time reposing in the trunk —a remarkably small one—which lie used as a seat. 1 luring the trial he was a-ked how lie hud managed to squeeze the body of a well-developed woman into so small a compass, and, without losing his { hlegmatie placidity, he retorted, " Monsieur le president, there were six inches of room to spare." The now common practice of finding extenuating circumstances for the most atrocious crimes was just finding favour with court and jury, so that Klootz was merely sentenced to penal servitude for life. In 184"J a large crowd had gathered in the yards of the messageries' otlice of Orleans to witness theproc.urr.ur dii roi, seconded by a commissary and several policemen, inspect the luggage stored in a large shed on the premises, chiefly in consequence of the declarations made by a certain Kcnard, landlord of the Hotel de I'Kurope in the town. As the men were overhauling a large trunk he exclaimed that it was the one! The lock was torn open and the interior revealed a hideously mutilated body wrapped in many folds of linen. Benard and many others identified it as the corpse of a porter of the bank who had been sent the day before to receive several important sums in the city. He had not returned in the even ing, and, as he was known to have formed some undesirable acquaintances, although strictly honest himself, suspicions were directed specially to one of these, the agent of an insurance company, who had been seen to enter with the porter into a room of the Hotel de l'Europe and had apparently determined to possess himself of the man's case and money bag. In the struggle ho had killed him, and finding a trunk in the hall had appropriated it, hidden the body inside and had had it conveyed to the luggage ollice of the messagerios labelled for Toulouse. He himself gave all these particulars at the trial, and, as the papers relating his execution expressed it, "met his fate with the fortitude and resignation of a true Christian !" Not very many years later the employees of the station of Dornach, near Mulhause, casually remarked to each other that a certain box "left to be called for" xchwit-tn roth —sweated redand called the attention of the stationmaster to this extraordinary peculiarity. He had the box examined by the police, who discovered the head and bust of a woman whose legs were found some days later on the bank of the Rhine. As the victim was not identified and as it was not possible to bring home lie crime to the woman who was suspected of having been seen lato one night in the company of a stranger to the locality, this murder swelled the list of the unpunished assassinations. There is certainly a greater carelessness and recklessness in the criminals of to-day than in those of the past, and they more frequently themselves give the clue to the murders they have committed, possibly because a century ago they knew that their inevitable fate, if convicted, was the scaffold, or, even worse, the torture and tho rack, while now they reckon, with almost equal certainty, on those habitually invoked "extenuating circumstances" which virtually have done away with capital punishment still existing in tho code of criminal legislation. .