A Terrible Sentence on a Murderess.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIX, Issue 6482, 27 September 1892, Page 4

A Terrible Sentence on a Murderess.

St. Petersburg, Sept. 22. The hearing of a Finland cause cekbre has just come to an end. Mrs Sainio, a young and brainless wife of a college professor, poisoned her husband. After a lengthened trial the court ordered her right hand to be cut off, and she was then to be beheaded and her body burned. The convict appeals to the Cz&r against the sentence. [The case referred to above has been much discussed in European papers for some mouths past. The murderess was the young wife of an elderly professor at a Finland university, and was a spoilt and petted child-wife of the class rendered famous by the Danish dramatist, Henrik Ibsen. It transpired at the preliminary enquiry that the young wife was angry with her spouse because he refused her money to squander on the veriest frivolities, and that without other apparent reason she deliberately poisoned him. The details of the ingenious manner in which she endeavored to hide her crime were published in full some months ngo, and the similarity of her character to that of one of Ibsen's dramatic heroines was made the subject of several articles in the English and Continental press.]

" What can be won over a Melbourne Cup?" writes " Free Lance" :—"' A hundred thousand pounds, if you get it all,' says a cash fielder. ' Fifty thousand nowadays, if you are lucky,' is the opinion of a very popular club secretary. Although there may possibly be more betting in Australia nowadays than there was ten years back, I am convinced that the wagering is far lighter than it used to bo. First Water, for example, a comparative outsider on the day of the race, was backed by the stable alonetowinseventy-fiveor eighty thousand pounds in Martini-Henri's Cup (in which the chestnut finished second) ; to-day, if any decent performer engaged in the coming Melbourne Cup were supported to win thirty thousand pounds he would be brought to a very short price in the betting quotations. All told, counting all the principal outside bookmakers, and including the paddock fielders on the day of the race, it might be possible to win and (which is a far more important consideration) be paid, over a hundred thousand pounds if every available penny were snapped up about this year's Cup winner; but I doubt whether any commissioner could step into the Victorian Club, Melbourne, and Tattersall's, Sydney, and back any horse satisfactorily to win more than fifty thousand pounds without exhausting the market. Reverting to the possible profits accruing from tilting at the ring in Victoria just now, I am inclined to think thafc if this year's first favorite ■wins the Melbourne Cup, the total amount to be disbursed to his backers on settling day will not total LIOO,OOO. This, of course, is exclusive of double and treble event transactions. Summing the matter up pithily, then, the amount to be won over any big race hinges entirely on the support accorded the ring by the public, and the length (or depth) of the punters' purses. The more money the metallicians hold belonging (primarily) to the big body of backers, the larger will be the amount available for those lucky enough to back the winner of the Melbourne Cup of 1892."

The American trotting mare Nancy Hanks, owned by J. Malcolm Forbes, of Boston, who purchased her recently for $45,000, trotted a mile in 2miu 7|sec at Washington Park, Chicago, on August 17th, in the presence of 10,000 spectators. She waa driven by Budd Doble in one of the new sulkies, with bull gearings and pneumatic tyres. Ihe animal had no boots or trappings of any kind. Maud S. trotted in 2min B^sec, and Sunol in 2min B^sec. Nancy Hanks has therefore broken all records made previously to her great feat. At the same time, horsemen in Cincinnati aesert that the rubber tyre of her Bulky wheels ia three seconds faster than the kind Maud S. used, and that therefore Nancy Hanks must go three seconds better than Maud S. to equnl her time. A bit of ancient history, says the Post, is revived in the petition .of William Dodds, of Otaki. carpenter, which alleges (bat iq 1846 petitioner and his father and

brother agreed with Sir George €h:ey, the Hon. William Petre (Colonial Secretary), and Mr Thomas Fitzgerald, to erect a flourmill for the Natives at Otaki, for which they were to receive 200 acres of land in addition to the price of the mill. The contract was duly completed, and the mill handed over to the Rev. Father Lee Compte, then in charge of the Otaki mission, but petitioner says he never got his land, nor did his father or brother, bath since dead.

The Evening Standard of July 7th contain«d the following: — "In a London auotion room a pair of bellows of Italian workmanship — and designed, it is supposed, by Bonvenuto Cellini— was sold for four hundred and seventy guineas." Four hundred and Beventy guineas would be £493 10s. For this sum, Bays The Land Roll, we could sell a Freehold Manor House, with 8 acres of well-stocked meadow, orchards, and buildings, in a charming district noar the Malvern Hills, or a freehold house and garden at Slough, only a mile or two from Windsor Castle, or lands or houses in other places. But there is no accounting for taste. The owner of this precious pair of bellows will no doubt hide it away in some cabinet containing similar curios, and never think that it costs him in interest L24 13s 6d per annum ; yet, if he came to us to buy a house or land, the interest value would be insisted upon &b the basis of his purchase value. Some people are willing to pay a luxury price for anything but land. In the Westminster County Court an 'action was brought by a lady named Kendal against the proprietor of Flashes newspaper, to recover a silk dress or its value. The evidence of the plaintiff showed that on March 28 an advertisement appeared of tea at 2s per lb, and the plaintiff bought 61b, for which she paid 12s. The person who sent in the largest number of coupons was to have a new silk dress. Plaintiff was told by the defendant's manager that Mrs Kendal had sent in the largest number of coupons, as no one else^iad sent in any at all. The dress was never given. His Honor gave a verdict for the plaintiff for £5 damages and costs.