CAPITAL CHARGE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23004, 6 October 1936, Page 11

CAPITAL CHARGE

' —i —— MOTHER-IN-LAW HELD The Manchester of France has been the scene of a drama that would hardly be possible anywhere outside France, where so much importance is attached to the contribution that a bride brings to the fortunes of the family into which she marries. Three years ago Lieutenant Maury, a young and promising officer of the 43rd Infantry Regiment, stationed at Lille, met a young girl from Rouen, and the romance led to marriage, Less than two years ago their first babe was born, and a second was expected. The couple were happy together, but their happiness was marred by the antipathy of the young officer's mother to her daughter-in-law, an antipathy having for sole origin the fact that the bride was too poor to bring into the family the " dot" which every middle-class family in France expects. The disputes on this head had grown so bitter that the young officer, who sided with his wife, had forbidden his mother to enter his house. On the day of the tragedy, while the officer was on duty, the mother arrived, and in the hope of making peace the wife invited her to luncheon. In the middle of the meal the quar-

rel broke out afresh, after the older woman had reproached the younger with her poverty and what it meant to her husband's prospects of advancement. . .

In a fury, the mother-in-law seized a bottle on the table and struck the daughter-in-law on the head, splitting her skull. Despite her terrible injuries, the younger woman reached the window of the flat and called to passers-by for aid.

When they arrived in the apartment they found the young wife suspended by a bootlace behind the door, and when she was cut down she was dead. The mother-in-law had sought refuge in the cellar, from which she was taken, after some trouble, by the police. Summoned from duty without being told the reason, Lieutenant Maury arrived home to find his adored wife lying dead on the floor. He fell in a faint on her body.; According to neighbours, the young people were devoted to each other, and this seems to have intensified the rage of the mother against the'wife. The older woman had made many threats against the younger one, but no one imagined she would carry them out.