MOTHER’S STRANGE DREAM

New Zealand Mail, 29 November 1900, Page 16

MOTHER’S STRANGE DREAM

Gustave Reginald Peat, a middle-aged man. described as a labourer, but wno said he was “an attache to a steamroller,” was charged, on remand, at- bpeJthorpe sessions, he’d at Sunbury Sept. 28, with having murdered a chiM named Alice Elizabeth Smith, aged years, in a shed at Foyle Cardboard null, near Colnbrook, cm or about Aug. • piece of gas-pipe was found near scene of the murder, mrnl prisoner, statement made to' Deteciive-m pector Arrow, said ;—“I have carried a JL gas-piping as a weapon or def ca ■. j cause lam on the road, and Iha _ it very useful. I left such api . “ side the gate when I entered the Sta union. ... I have earned a of rope in case I met anyone power. I have had a rope with a j on it. I should make a man msensi .e first. I love hlood-the blood of tee Sacrament.” —Mr M DonelL o the Treasury, asked for a- furt.i _ ‘ for a week. Further evidenc called.—Prisoner was remanded. The arrest of Peat, says JW Newspaper,” has had a somewhat stling sequel. Mrs Smith, tne mother « the child, on Sept. 21 volunteered the information to a Lloyd s repr T on that she had seen the child l ] v since she had been murdered, F as she ever saw her in lire. ,; 15 dream she had in the early P< _ j morning, after Smith had go P on ]y gone to his work. Of course ‘ t v . flS .a dream, hut, said she, the j^ic coming true in many P artlc . o dby tho thought the •hilcl came and stood by

Bien she saw ht T sl >® sa 0. child, where liave you ine ?” The child replied, ; could not come before. . met me and got old of ;ed me away, and they ie go. Oh, mother, you v they nurt me, tor they they beat me and knockJie head so. I couldn’t j . eu „TVo' rou, for they put me in a sack • ; Stied me up-’' The mother woke up she was going t oask the child tfre it-Vas done. But whether i„ was i “ {ream or not there was someth.ng 1 “• remarkable about it, for on Sept. - 20‘the police, visited her and said they r • 'f A made a most important discovery ’ ' j,idi would probably show how it was ; || )e ehikl had not been discovered before. They had examined another part of the T. ffa ste-papfer shed, and in me opposite side : : xi that where the body was discovered found a large sack partly filled with ■ - Ba ners. These papers were saturated | n-ith blood, and there was ample evidence I that after the child was murder* was first put into that sack and P then tied up. There appeared to he also t' som ythuth in the statement to I fe that she was caught by two men, ; ' for the police were now socking everywhere for a particular individual. ' In 1 f aC f this man's evidence would be so imi phrlant that unless they could find him \ before the magisterial examination it iy Vas doubtful whether she would be res' -mured to attend, as probably they would | ask for another adjournment before ofl; 'ferihg further evidence. There- was now no doubt that the child had been in the village _a, second time, and had done her message, 'for she was seen and spoken to by several 'people. Of course she could not say for ■ certain where the child was first, seized and dragged away but her own .idea was that she was ju=t returning home, ■ anil was laid hold of just at the corner of the way into the mills, where the /paper shed is. Her belief now is that • rue child was hidden in the sack from

the Friday- to the Sunday night, and

that it was on the Sunday night that the jbody was taken pint of the sack and placed under the heavy load of paper where is was discovered on the Monday. There was evidence to show that two men were at the shed shortly before 10 on the Sunday night, for one man was -seen outside, and was head to whistle to another man inside, as if to give a signal of anyone passing.