THE WORMWOOD SCRUBS TRAGEDY.

New Zealand Times, Volume LV, Issue 9971, 4 August 1893, Page 3

THE WORMWOOD SCRUBS TRAGEDY.

(from our own correspondent.) London. Juno 10.

What a three-volume novel Geo. Qissing oould make out of tho Wormwood Scrubs murder. Polioo-oonstablo Cooke would be the horo with a blameless record till a low trollop tempted him from the path of virtue and tied him to her vicious tide. He in time grows to hate the woman and tbo life he’a lea ling with her and longs to escape. His superior officers help him, and Cooke is transferred to another part of Loudon. For a time be succeeds in shaking tho creature off. Brighter days seem dawning when she finds and follows him, preys upon him, libels bis character, and assails him in furious fits of greed and jealousy. Cooke has formed a new attachment to a virtuous girl, who returns bis affection. The cld mistress dogs him and meets him in a lonely place ; irritated beyond endurance, he turns and strikes her, she utters an intolerable taunt and threatens him with exposure, professional ruin, and tho sacrifice of his engagement. At this be becomes insane with passion. It is a fiaroo j"y to rain down blows with his truncheon on this accursed fiond'e head, and it is not till ho has staggered away from a bleeding corpse that tbo unhappy man realises be Is a murderer.

And yet Mr Frederic Harrison and other learned gentlemen assure us Diffidently that nobody can write romances because there is nothing romantic to write about.