WIFE’S LETTERS

Otago Witness, Issue 3584, 21 November 1922, Page 27

WIFE’S LETTERS

LONDON, November 2. “Darling, how can you get ptomaine poisoning from a tin of salmon?” “I am giving all and accepting everything. I think I am looked on as a dutiful wife, whose spirit is at last bent to the w\l of her husband.” “Darlingest, only lover of mite, try to cheer me up.” These and other extracts from the letters of Mrs Thompson to Bywaters, a ship’s steward, accused of the murder of her husband by stabbing, were read at the resumed trial to day. Counsel for the prosecution also quoted headlines from press cuttings contained in letters about ooison cases, rat poison, and drugs. Mrs Thompson and Bywaters listened with intense interest to the quotations. Towards the end Mrs Thompson, who became greatly agitated, was revived with water and smelling salts. One letter, written in 1921, asked Bywaters to take back his letters. “I am scared to death lest anyone should read my letters.” Reading the letters was the only procedure to-day, the magistrate remarking that though he had expressed a desire not to spin out the case, he now understood that there were grave reasons for the remand.