Miscellaneous Extracts.

Wairarapa Standard, Volume XIX, Issue 1810, 22 March 1886, Page 3

Miscellaneous Extracts.

HORRIBLE CHILD MURDER. A horrible child-murder was committed at a place about three miles from Brisbane A young married woman, Mary Newman, was observed piling on bushes to a fire in a back yard by her neighbour, Mrs. Burton, who at the time smelled something which resembled the burning of human flesh. She went up to tbe fire and asked Mrs. Newman what was being burnt, and got an evasive answer, which aroused her suspicions. Mrs. Burton '.then picked up the stick, and on turning over tbe fire, saw the body ot a newly-born infant about ha f roasted. Tbe legs which bad been a long time in the fire, were burned to the knees, the head and arms were charred, and the trunk, which was wrapped in a cloth was scarcely injured. Mrs. Burton reported the circumstances to the police, who ar rested the woman and conveyed her to the hospital, where two doctors examined the the dead body, and believe the child was born alive Mrs. Newman has not been living with her husband for some time. Nothing has been observed to indicate mental derangement, but the murderess is still too weak to be brought up before tbe Bench. Mrs. Newman affirms that her chHd was still-born, and that she kept it until next morning, and then burnt it to hide her shame. She has three children, and separated from her husband six years ago."

DOES LOVE LE\D TO CRIME ? Lofe often leads to crime : the simple act of courting a servant girl may very easily eventuate in tbe adorer finding himself inside tbe walls of a prison. Mistresses no infrequently object to having maids who are in love, or to their being persecuted with the attentions of young men when the affection is not reciprocated. In either case the entanglement is sure to interfere with the proper execution of the girl’s duties and the time which should be spent in furbishing the fireirons and titivating the tins is devoted in writing love-letters, or gazing out of the window to catch a glimpse of the beloved one. The landlady of an inn at Buntingford recently determined that there should be no more swee hearting between her housemaid and sighing swain who was paying his addresses to her, and con seqnently forbade that gentleman to show himself on the premises. But when love is ruthlessly crushed, angry passions are apt to rise within the human breast, and revenge is one of them. It was so in this case. The mistress had forbidden the match, and a match must be the medium of revenge. So thedissappomted lover struck a match instead of striking the landlady, and, to prove that he did not care a straw for her, set fire to her stack of straw. Thus love leads to incendiarism, and incendiarism leads to prison, and the young aspirant for matrimonial bliss, instead of carrying a mate to his warm nest, became a gaol-bird, and has to'perch alone in his cold solitary cell. Those who would avoid such a cell as this had best not fail in love.