MURDER IN MELBOURNE.

Otago Witness, Issue 1927, 29 January 1891, Page 18

MURDER IN MELBOURNE.

(From Oub Own Correspondent.) Melbourne, January 20. A murder and attempted suicide has taken place at South Yarra. It is a case presenting no features of interest. An ."engine driver on the railways named Thomas Fhelan had been cohabiting with a woman named Ada Hatton. She left him and went to a houße of ill-repnte. Phelan, when in drink, went to the house and, finding the woman alone, cut her throat from ear to ear with a table knife and then made an attempt to cut his own. The occurrence is chiefly noticeable as serving to point a moral. The utter indifference of the lower and labouring classes in these colonies, and particularly in such cities as Melbourne and Sydney, to marriage as a social, not to speak of religious, law, is absolutely appalling. If a census could be taken of the poorer classeß in this city, the disclosure it would make of the absence of the matrimonial bond amongst couples living together wonld be shocking in the extreme. Is the godleEs system of education to be blamed ? One does not know what to say; but the complete absence or religious feeling in common life is very marked in Melbourne.

Mr William Quarrier, the well-known philanthropist, has received a donation of L2OOO to erect an additional house in connection with the Orphan Homes of Scotland. Tbe donor says the money is given in memory of " a beloved husband and father."