A MYSTERY.

Oamaru Mail, Volume I, Issue 52, 21 June 1876, Page 2

A MYSTERY.

The Melbourne correspondent of the "Daily Times" writes:—"We have been agitated, or rather we have been interested, for some days, over what the papers call the ' Hawthorn Mystery.' In one of the suburbs of Melbourne, named Hawthorn, stands a small drapery store, kept by a rather well-to-do old woman named Thomson, and her son, a young man of about twenty. Upwards of a week ago it was noticed that the place was closed, no reason having been assigned for the sudden disappearance of the occupants. After some days an uneasy suspicion that all was not right arose, and the police at length called in the assistance of a brother of the missing woman, who was telegraphed for from the country, and searched the place. Nothing, however, could be found to throw any light on the disappearance of the son and mother, and ultimately two of the brothers took possession of the house. While they were spending the second evening there, one of them, who had just come in, declared that he smelled something strange, and on looking about, they observed a depression in the canvas ceiling of the room, through a hole in which a human foot was protruding. The police were called, and the body of the son was found hanging from the ridge of the roof, above the ceiling, a place where he had got with great difficulty. He had evidently committed suicide, and the surmise then was suggested that he had murdered his mother, as there was known to have been some difference between them, owing to her disapproval of his restless and vicious conduct. However, nothing has yet been elicited to confirm this conjecture, and the disappearance of the mother remains an unsolved mystery. That scene of the dead man's foot pointing down through the ceiling has a touch of romantic horror about it which, skilfully worked upon, would make a great hit in a sensational novel."