FEARFUL DOUBLE TRAGEDIES IN AUSTRALIA.

Colonist, Volume XII, Issue 1215, 31 August 1869, Page 5

FEARFUL DOUBLE TRAGEDIES IN AUSTRALIA.

OUTBAGE AND SUICIDE AT WHITTLESEA, VICTOBIA,

The Melbourne papers narrate that one of tlie most shocking occurrences which has taken place in the outlaying districts of Melbourne since Barrett murdered Mrs. Beckinsale, at Woodstock, was perpetrated at the Upper Plenty on Monday morning 10th August. It seems from the particulars in the possession of the police, that a. farmer named Frederick Edwards left bis bouse at one o'clock on M onday morning to come to town with some hay, leaving his wife, a baby, and a girl named Mary Ann Cord, aged ten years, and a farm laborer named Thomas Jones behind him. At daylight Mrs. Edwards was alarmed by Jones breaking into, tier bedroom and making improper overtures teller, Sb.3 remonstrated, and the girl Cord, al^rEoed by hex screams, came into the room,, vihsn Jones attacked them both with a ha.mmeß, striking each several blows on the head, 3se committed the capital offence on Mrs. Edwa.rd.Bj, and then set fire to the house, which km quickly consumed, Mm, Edwardi wd

♦he girl escaped tliWugli tiiia ,wiijsl6W,,and tbd ruffian Jones made otf. Jones ii an-old Vandemdmnn, and had beert recently discharged by Edward*, but allowed to stay on the premises. Jones was hunted up by the police, and Was found a day or two after. Be was discovered in a paddock where he had stabbed himself, and was dying when taken. He died soon after. MUEDBE AND SUICIDE AT WATXABOO, NEW SOUTH WAIiES. The Deniliquin Chronicle reports the occurrence of the following tragedy: —" On the 21st of July, on the Wallaroo JEtidge, a man named Taylor, a free selecter, Bhot his wife through the breast, and then deliberately blew out his own brains with a revolver. A little girl living in the house heard the report of the firearms, and immediately ran to the house; but, to her horror, the first sight which caught her eyes was her sister, Mrs. Taylor, lying on a bed, and blood copiously streaming from the wound iv her breast. Scarcely had she recovered from the terrified astonishment which this picture created, than she heard another report of a pistol. She looked through the slabs of the house and saw Taylor stretched with his feet towards the door at full length on the ground, apparently dead. It waa n;>t until evening that any grown person came to the scene of Ihe tragedy, and then, unfortunately, Mrs. Taylor .waa fast approaching dissolution. She was questioned about the affair, but being unable or unwilling to tell more than was already known, her answers gave no direct clue to the motives which impelled her husband to imbrue his hands in her blood at the same time to take his own life. The woman expired about eight o'clock that night. Mro. Taylor leaves an orphan child of twelve months old. Taylor was a sufferer from disease of the heart, and the day previous to the murder he purchased a, bottle ot chlprodyne, and drank nearly the whole of its coutents. It; is thought that this drug operated upon his intellect to that extent that he was rendered insane, and while so rashly committed the deed. He shot hi 3 wife whilst standing with her back towards him. The ball entored the shoulder and passed out a little under the left breast. The lasb words the poor woman uttered were a request that her, father and mother, who resided at Cobbora, would take charge of the orphan infant.".