EXCUSABLE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIV, Issue 58, 1 November 1912, Page 8

EXCUSABLE.

THE FRENCH VIEW OF IT. A Parisian jury has again assumed that a deliberate attempt to shoot one’s wife and mother-in-law may be an excusable peccadillo, says a Home correspondent. The alleged culprit, at any rate, is declared not guilty, and is let off free. The wife and mother-in-law-, it is true, spent only a few weeks in a public hospital, and they had shared only three bullets between them. The “incident” occurred some time last spring. An ardent youth had married a girl of only 16 in July, 1911. In less than nine months the br'de discovered that she could not continue to live wdth her husband, and returned to her mother. The husband thereupon wrote a letter to his own parents to inform them that lie was very sorry at having to give them displeasure, but bo found it necessary for his own pence of inind and to quiet his nerves to kill his young wife. She could no longer be his, and he would not allow her to bo another’s. This “tender” letter, written a few days before he carried out his determination, was read to the jury. It was no doubt duly considered. The Public Prosecutor explained that the disappointed husband had gone to try to persuade his fugitive wife to return. She declined to do so, and with he)' mother was about to take refuge in a cafe. The young man drew a revolver out of his pocket and fired throe shots at his wife and mother-in-law. Both women were wounded, tho one under the arm, the other in the shoulder; but after spending twenty days in the hospital they were cured. Tho husband did not commit suicide, as ho had declared he might he tempted to do in his lettfer to his parents. He preferred to wait and to let the matter go before a Parisian jury. Ho was well inspired, for the jury took as lenient a view as possible, allowing I2oofr. damages to the moth-er-in-law for the time that she had spent in the hospital and for the injury to her feelings.