PROSE POEMS OF A MURDERED GIRL

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12423, 17 April 1926, Page 11

PROSE POEMS OF A MURDERED GIRL

“HAPPINESS TOO ELUSIVE TO HOLD LIGHTLY.”

Amazing love letters written by a typist to a miner were read at Cardiff Assizes recently, when George Thomas, 26, was sentenced to death for the murder of Marie Beddoe Thomas. V The ,girl was stabbed from behind as she was entering the chapel where she was a chorister, and Thomas was seen with a bread knife in his Jiand, with which ho inflicted a wound in his own thigh before he was arrested. Evidence was given that the couple had kept company, but an estrangement took place in March last, and they both formed other attachments. Very soon, however, it wah found that thoy were corresponding secretly, and in one letter the girl wrote: —

It is not wrong for us to write to each other, is it? I know we are' both engaged and all that, but there can be no harm in our jupt asking t after, each other’s health now and again. HER SHATTERED DREAM In another letter she asked him was he not happy, and added:— How happy we used to be before other people butted in and tried to arrange “our affairs. Happineso is too clusivo and fragile

a thing to catch and hold roughly or lightly. Wo hold it too lightly and it flitted away from us like somo brilliant-hued butterfly, never to return again. Now close your eyes, dear. I am going to kiss you. Mise Thomas later wrote: — I- have told you a terrible Ho. I can't be your wife with the memory of that loathsome lie weighing on my heart. Go to her who is so white and good. She would never tell you lies to make you love her more. Through my damnable rapacity of making people believe what I say, I "have shattered my dearest, most precious dream, but black ns I am I cohld not let this delirious happiness go on while the shadow of my ho lay over me. : t Another letter, addressed! to “My moet dear George,” contained the following passages:— Prom where I lie I can eeo the vivid blue of the sea, the gold of the sands, and the flashing whiteness of tho winging seagull. It’s nil very beautiful and wonderful, but not onetenth ns wonderful as our married love will be. Can’t you picture us in winter, months: a cheery fire, mir table and chairs- drawn close to it, soft shaded lights, some winter flowers, then bed.

INSANE FATHER’S CRIME John Breeze (36). collier and drill hall caretaker, of Abercnrn, was found “guilty but insane,” and was ordered to he detained during His Majesty’s pleasure, at the Monmouthshire Assizes before Mr Justice' Sankey. Fie was charged with the murder of his three children—lris 18). Olive Mary (4). and Befly Charlotte (18 months) by shooting them with a service rifle while they were asleep. Mr G. F. Vachell, TC.O. (for the defence), urged that Breeze lind a distinguished war career, but, that his experiences and wounds had affected his brain.