A MELBOURNE TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11553, 17 January 1901, Page 3

A MELBOURNE TRAGEDY.

Melbourne, January 7. Carlton supplied a sensational domestic brawl this morning. James Day, a man about 40, struck his wife on the head with a claw-hammer, and, believing he had killed her, attempted suicide by gashing his throat with a razor.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock to-day, a young woman, with blood flowing from the back of her head, rushed frantically down Lvgon-street, crying out hysterically: " I'm hit! I'm hit!" Subsequently her excitement cooled, and a constable having arrived, she was taken to the hospital in a cab. Examination showed that the woman's skull had been slightly fractured. ■ ■■ In the meantime, the.police had gone to Day's residence in Lygon-street,_ Carlton, and receiving no response to their knocks, walked in. A wide track of blood leading from a well-furnished front room guided them-to the scullery. On the way they picked up a claw-hammer, blood-stained. In the ghastly quietness of the house they heard heavy breathing, and on entering an adjoining bedroom saw Day on the broad of his back on the bed, with a frightful gash in his throat. On the floor was a razor, in a. pool of blood. Day was breathing through a gap in his windpipe, and he was unconscious. The wound was temporarily patched up, and the man taken at once to the hospital, where he was found to be excessively weak from loss of blood. The doctors, however, think he will recover. On being told that his wife was all right. Dav exclaimed, fervently,, "Thank God!" Mrs. Day was able to leave the hospital after the wound on her head was dressed. The parties are said to have come from Queensland about six weeks ago. Asked what led up to the wounding and throat-cutting, Mrs. Day answered laconically, "Oh, we had a bit of a quarrel.'