NEW CALEDONIAN SENSATIONS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1343, 21 May 1885, Page 3

NEW CALEDONIAN SENSATIONS.

At last advices some little stir had been created in Noumea by the sudden disappearance of a well-known merchant, whose name is only indicated by the letter D. He took his departure for Auckland in the barque Fanny Thornton, without even apprising nis wife of his intention, He is understood to be beaTily indebted to various mercantile firms in the place, where he has hitherto borne a good character and enjoyed plenty of credit. A convict named Perrot, who had been transported for life for having killed his own father, has just been sentenced to death by the military tribunal on a charge of having murdered a fellow-convict named Bataille. The two men had planned their escape from the prison, and had succeeded in filing the irons with which they were heavily manacled, but they were bafijed in the attempt. According tp the somewhat dubious testimony of some of the other prisoners, Bataille and Perrot had a quarrel after the failure of their plans, and drawing a butcher's knife, " which he always wore attached to hh belt (?)" the former himself upon the Jatter, exclaiming, "• Sinoe I cannot avenge myself upon the warder Gadoffrc, I will avenge myself on thee." Perrot then disarmed his assailant, and stabbed him several times with the weapon ; but as was a man of Herculean strength the story is discredited. The first blow struck Parrot's victim to the heart, when he fell crying i for mercy. The blows were repeated four or five times in the place, wj-jile the rest of

the connote looked placidly on, as they are accustomed to do on all such occasions. When the man was dead they raised a cry for help; and on two warders presenting themselves, Perrot proudly avowed himself to be the murderer, and gate up the knife, the point of which was foun-i to have been turned by coming in contact with one of the verterbrra of the murdered man. At the present time, it appears there ara twenty men condemned to death in the penal establishments of New Caledonia, whose sentences have not been executed in consequence «f President G-revy's conscientious scruples.