LOVE, JEALOUSY, AND MURDER.

Wellington Independent, Volume XVII, Issue 1787, 4 November 1862, Page 4

LOVE, JEALOUSY, AND MURDER.

f A painful and mysterious tragedy occurred recently at Cobham. On the Jst AugU3t the bodies of two well-dressed men were found in a clump of trees a short distance from the main road. One of the men had been shot through the breast, and the other through the head. Near them waa found a piece of papgr which made it appear that they had hoth committed suicide, and which also contained a reference to a young lady, whose name, after having been apparently inserted hy the writer, had afterwards been erased. In a few days it was discovered that the deceased were two brothers, named Bittlestone. who held respectable positions iv London as clerks. They had left home to go on a short fishing excursion. An inquest was held on the bodies, at which the father of the young men tendered evidence: bat the mystery was not cleared up. The father gave it as his opinion that the young lady referred to in the scrap of writing above mentioned was the sister of the deceased . The body of the younger brother Herbert was found lying upon that of the elder, Charles. It was therefore conclude 1 that the latter had died first. The writing was proved to be in Herbert* hand. The jujy returned a verdict of "Felodo se" against Herbert, and found that Charles died of a pistol shotwoun I, but by whom inflicted there was no evidence to show. A provincial paper, in commenting upon the facts of the extraordinary case, proves that the most probable hypothesis is that the younger brother first shot the elder and then committed suicide, and that jealousy and disappointed love were the motives tor his conduct: — •' The Jury, which was an unusually intelligent one, was very much puzzled by the evidence of of the senior Mr. Bittlesfcone. They could not believe that the deed was perpetrated without any motive. They could not believe that the writer of the scrawl on the back of the tailor's circular referred to his sister Emily when he wrote, * Take the gloves the writer wears to , and tell her that he,died blessing her and praying for her happi.

ness. * * And as the last request of her dying child, he asked his mother to love ~, and to care of her as far as possible.' It is not consistent with experience that so romantic a passion should exist between a brother and sister, that the last prayer of a dying suicide should be addressed to his mother, begging her to take care of her daugh ter. Why should it be necessary to urge such a request ? And why, too, such, care to erase the name if his own sister'a had ever beeu inserted there? The jury were right in discarding this view, and in thinking, as they evidently did, that the name of some young lady to whom one or both of the brothers had been attached had there been written. Herbert, f>y his own letter, was confessedly a suicide ; was he not also a murderer and a fratricide ? To this fearful interrogatory the jury have not thought it necessary to return an answer . It is remarkable that the bullets, the powder flask, the percussion-caps, and all the instruments of death were found upon Herbert, while on Charles was found the <n>py of a newspaper, bearing the date of the day on which the two brothers set out on their excursion, and indicating that he was not at all intent upon crime. From a careful analysis of this case, the theory at which we have arrived is this : — That Herbert and Charles Bittle stone were in love with the same lady ; that the lady favoured the pretentious of the elder brotner ; and that the younger, consumed by a devouring flune. resolved that, as his suit was rejected, neither should possess her. That, animated by these feelings, he engaged his brother Charles to join in bis pretended fishing excursion ; and that having enticed him into the sequestered spot where the bodies were fcund, he there foully murdered him, and then committed suicide upon himself. We further believe that the letter to which reference has so often been make was written beforehand, with the view of removing from his memory the stigma attaching to a murderer, and encouraging the idea that each had committed suicide. This vi iw is corroborated by the evidence of Mrs. Susan- j nan Morum, wife of the colt-breaker residing on the common, who distinctly swore that the pistol shots followed each other at an interval of not more than two minutes; whereas it would have taken double that time to have wriitten the letter in question.