A STRANGE AND DREADFUL STORY.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2049, 29 July 1875, Page 3

A STRANGE AND DREADFUL STORY.

Mr Charles Greville in his " Memoirs " relates a singularly distressing and romantic story, which was-told to Moore, the poet, by I>t JPhiiip Crampton the StirgeonGenetal. • - years ,ago," said Crampton, " I was present at a duel that was fought between a-young man of the name of Macloughlin and another Irishman. Macloughiin was desperately wounded ; his second ran up to him, and thought to consol him with the intellifence that his antagonist had also fallen. [c only replied,' I-ain sorry for it, if he is suffering as much as Ido now.' I was •truck by the good feeling evinced in this reply, and took an interest in the fate of -^he-young rmfflirHi-c3'dßovßre«l, and ra fevT years afterwards I heard ..that he had been arrested on suspicion of haying murdered his father-in-law, "iis mother's second husband. He was tried and found guilty chiefly on the evidence of a soldier who happened to be passing in the middle of the night near the house in which the murder was committed. Attracted by . a light which ' gleamed through the lower part of the window, he approached it, and, through "an opening between the shutter and the frame,-was able to look into the.room. There he saw a man in the act of lifting a deadrbody from the floor, while his hands and clothes were stairfed ■ with blood. He gave information, Macloughlin and ' bis mother were apprehended ; and the former, having been- identified by the soldier, was found guilty. There was no evidence against the woman, and she was acquitted. Macloughlin conducted himself with great calmness, but never acknowledged that he was guilty. The morning of his execution he had an interview with" his mother, and when they . parted, he was heard to say, 'Mother, may God forgive you! ' Several years afterwards, I one day received a letter from a lady, an old acquaintance, entreating I would go to the assistance of a Catholic priest who was lying dangerously ill at her house. Being unable toleave Dublin, I wrote to say that the case soemed hopeless, but I should .recommend certain lenitives, for which I added a prescription. The priest died, and" shortly after his death the lady confided to me an extraordinary and dreadful story. ■In moments of agony, and doubt, he had , revealed to her a secret imparted to him in confession. He had received the dyingconfession of- Macloughlin, who, as it turned out, was not the murderer of his father-in-law, but had died to save tbe life and honor of his mother, by whom the crime had really been committed. She was -a woman of violent passions; she had quarrelled with her husband, and after throwing him from *' the bed, had despatched him by repeated blows. When she found he was dead, she was seized with terror, and hastening to the apartment of her son, called him to witness the shocking spectacle, and to save her from the consequences of her crime. It was at the moment when he was lifting the .body, and preparing to remove the bloody evidence .of his mother's guilt that the soldier passed by and saw him in the performance of his dreadful task. To the priest alone he acknowledged the truthj but. his last words :to his mother were now explained." Greville adds, ",the story struck us all," and Sir James Macintosh said, " it was enough to furnish materials for a novel."