AN INVERCARGILL SENSATION.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1321, 24 June 1897, Page 29

AN INVERCARGILL SENSATION.

, SERIOUS CHARGE AGAINST A >*£ SOLICITOR. Invekcaroill, June 22. l A sensation was caused here yesterday by the arrest of Richard Williamson Hall, solicitor, on a charge of procuring a medical man named Torrance, of Campbelltown, to administer and cause to be taken by one Caroline Matthews, wife of another solicitor, certain poison or noxious thing, with intent to procure a miscarriage. The offence is alleged to have been committed as far back as October, 1895. , Mrs Matthews, who has been living apart from her husband for several years, was also charged with unlawfully permitting the poison to be administered to her. Through counsel, when she was brought before the Court, she desired to state that Hall had nothing to do with the matter of which he is accused.

Both were remanded for a week on bail, Hall in a sum of £IOOO, and Mrs Matthews in a sum of £OOO. The woman was left with several children practically destitute, and was largely dependent on the benevolence of ladies. Her husband recently returned to Invercargill, but is not living with her.

Hall is a member of tho firm who are solicitors for the shareholders who have moved in the Supreme Court for tho examination of tho officials of the J. G. Ward Farmers' Association, which comes off next month in Dunedin.

A similar case is spoken of, the clue to which is said to have been obtained from letters written by one woman to another, and which the latter lost in a bag on the railway. Tho bag is said to have been sold in the usual course by the department, and, being purchased by a woman at the Bluff, she disclosed the contents to others, and the letters came nto the hand of the police.