ATTEMPTED MURDER BY A SAILOR.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVI, Issue 6272, 19 May 1881, Page 7

ATTEMPTED MURDER BY A SAILOR.

(UNITED l-’KESS ASSOCIATION.) Auckland, April 29. A sailor at Riverhead stabbed a young girl, aged about nineteen years, of prepossessing appearance, who had been on a visit at that place. Two railway porters and a stoker started off in pursuit of the would-be murderer. They found him at the house giving the girl, whom he had a few hours before attempted to deprive of life, milk with a spoon. Upon being informed of the mission of the visitors, he immediately yielded himself up. On one of them remarking that he had no handcuffs nor anything to bind him with, the sailor said, “ Oh, I will go quietly with you ; you need be under no apprehension on that account,” and be kept his word. He was brought to the station, and after being searched, was allowed his liberty. He continued, however, to walk up and down the platform for several hours, apparently quite unconcerned. While being searched a penknife was found upon him. On observing it accused said, “Tnafs not the knife I did it with ; Bradley has it.” When arrested he confessed to having committed the deed, saying, “ I stabbed the girl through love ; Ross caused me to do it.” The reasonable inference from these words is that he and Rosa were rival suitors. Possibly thinking Ross the more favored, and prompted by jealousy, the sailor madly wreaked his vengeance on the object of hia affection. The man also remarked, nonchalantly, to his captors, “ X know I shall be hanged if the girl dies.” The young woman is stabbed in two places, aud her condition is considered very serious. FURTHER PARTICULARS. The voung woman, Annie Carline, stabbed at Riverhead by the sailor Thos. Sims, has been brought to Auckland Hospital, aud ia likely to recover. The jugular vein ia exposed, but missed by the knife by a quarter of an inch. Sims was- charged at the Police Court with an attempt to murder, and remanded till the Bth of May to await the result. On the last trip of the ship Wanganui to Auckland, Sims was second mate, aud Miss Carline a passenger. On the voyage they were very intimately acquainted, and he regarded her as good as engaged to himself and went to sea, while she took an engagement aa servant to James Hands. Helensville, From thence she went to Walker’s Kaipara Hotel, where_ she mule acquaintance with Tom Ross. W hile here Sims returned, and induced her to leave her employer to go down to Auckland, Sims then accepted the position as A.B. on board the brigantine Clansman, aud soon after his departure John Lamb procured an engagement for the girl iu the house of Mrs. Leuton,- his daughter. She left this situation shortly afterwards and took up her residence at Bradley’s, Riverhead, where Sima (who had returned to Auckland) interviewed her on Wednesday night and desired an explanation of her conduct, stating he had heard she had been flirting with certain young men. He did not deem her explanation quite satisfactory, and on Thursday morning he again went to see her, when he stabbed her. Sims ia wiry in appearance, but evidently quite sensible of hia actions, aud there is certainly no madness about him. Sima’s rival is a respectable young man named Ross, for some time employed as mate_ on the steamer Minnie Casey. He for some time past has been paying attentions to Miss Carline, who did not at all seem averse to him, and they were said to be very good friends indeed. He occasionally took her out for walks, and it is believed that in Sims’s absence he was forgotten. This so enraged him that, laying the whole blame of the other's attachment on the shoulders of the unfortunate girl, he stabbed her. Whether Ross aud Sima were acquainted is not known, but there existed no correspondence between them’on the far as is known.