A THRILLING STORY.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 94, 5 December 1872, Page 3

A THRILLING STORY.

Tup writer of "Under the Verandah" in the Charleston Herald gives tho following sensational story, which that journal vouches for as being corrcct: A story with a thrill in it has been going the rounds of he ncw*pipers, how a woman's husband died somewhere "I, fuvereargill (Melbourne?), and how he left some mid just as the widow got over her loss, and got property, out comes the first wife of the dead man zim all his possessions, leaving the Becond, who never anything about the first wife, to become very hard up. ..•II some mini pitied the first wife because she was young, good looking, and he asked her to marry him, and she did. 'Then in l ime the second husband died, arid jut as the widow was going in grief-skirts and Dolly Vardens for him, who should rap at the door one afternoon, all the Wii.y from 11 nine, but ll,)e second husband's first wife ; then the double widow, who in law is no widow at all, with lu r five, children, was in great distress, as anyone may believe, if they will only try to imagine themselves similarly Mfuatcd. The story, as I have said, fairly considered, has a thrill in it; but 1 have,.,a story with a thriller. It all happened to my own knowledge, and illustrates a proverb that "Truth is stranger than fiction." A few years ago I was living in a suburb of the second city of V ictoria, and two <loors from me there dwelt in a neat cottage a man, a man I well to do in the world. He had made some money, on the flallarat goldfield's. This man had left his home and his wife to seek his fortune in Victoria. If he succeeded hejwas to send for his wife ; if he did not he was to work his way' back agaii the best way ho could. He^didi succeed. And here, aL this part of my story, I have got to introduce a villain. Like a Ibol, the man, instead of buying a bank draft to send home to his wife to pay her passage out, entrusted if to a male of his, who had-worked with him in Ihe lucky claim at Uallanil. The male (I knew the scoundrel well) was K<>ing home to England with a little pile of his own. Well, he look from the husband the 100 sovereignsio give the wife when he readied Liverpool. Now then, what does one think this man did? The answer will be—kept the

JiloiK-y ,to ,be sure j All, lie did that j but lie did a great deal worse. When lie saw the wife he saw a woman young mid ill ir to look upon, and at that moment llie Devil cnlercd liiiu. Instead of giving the woman good tidings, instead of gladdening her heart by dangling the purse of gulden sovereigns before her eyes and then putting it into the pahiw of hot li her hands, the dirty scoundrel told the woman he' husband was dead. What did lie care about her fainting, or her agony and ner after misery ; Now I come the romance of my story. When the woman's grief became assuaged and her tears dried, [and a little time showed had her destitnto condition, this fellow—the mate of. tW; living husband, who he said was dead, proposed to marry the poor woman, and she accepted him. The next act of dire rascality the fellow did was in write lo his mate and say that when he reached home lie found that, his wife was dent! — all hough, mind yon, he never remitted back the hundred sovereigns. Three months passed over,and that scoundrel wiU his wile lived in that huge suburb of London, known as Greenwich. One day he was brought home oil a stretcher, a dray having knocked him down, the wheel of which smashed his ankle, lie was stripped, put to bed, and the doctor sent for. 1 pass nil thin over, and say Ihutin feeling her new husband's pockets to put away anything 1 lie had in them, she discovered a letter addressed to him from hia former mate, requesting that, the hundred sovereigns held by him should be remit ted back. Then in an instant, almost in the twinkling of an eye, and with a surprise that will come to all wl en the last, trump of the angel shall have been sounded, she discovered the man's villainy, and her own utter misery. I'a :ing over an interval of time, I now bring the woman to Victoria lo seek out her first husband, having lied from the second. !Siie found hini residing within two doors from myself, who now relates this over-true story. But she found hint married Io a. second wife. Believing the false tale of his male respect ing his lirst wife's death, he ki'd honestly courted i respectable woman, and as honestly took her to church, and fnt. mi the wedding-ring in the presence of the clergyman, tie bridesmaid, and the best man- When the woman l> locked at. her husband's door, it was opened by his second w I'c, anil when all came to be known bet ween the t wo, how slnll 1 describe the miserable state of both; for I, a long married man, well-known in the suburbs, was sent for to try ami find a solution to the difficulty. Here were the first man and wife—the man wed to another woman—(lie wife wed to alio! Iter man iu Englr.nd. No guilt or fraud on either side. Win the man to live with his first wife, or should his second claim him ? vnl itaolf into a question of feeling. The man preferred his first wife to his sccond. The second wile declared she was about lo become the mother of n child by )>er husband—and sorrow on the day!—the first wile w:is also to become a mother by the scoundrel father of i.' in Kngland. What could Ido in the mat ter ? Nothing, but simply lseoinincnded the parties lo seek advice of the stipendiary magistrate. 'Ihey did this, and it was so nrranged that the man should take home his lirst wife ; that he give half of all he had to the second, who, with a broken heart, agreed lo go her way. The two women parted in bitter tears,hut with lender feelings towards each other. She who went her way soon after gave birth lo a still-born child, the mother dying three hours after ;'"nnd so the lifeless born child and the dead mother were buried in a bush g.'ave. This romance happened iu the village of Asliby, within lialf-a-mile ot Geelong, in Victoria, and there arc men now living in Auckland who recollect the circumstances equally well with myself. So I think there is not nearly the thrill in the Tnvercnrgill widow's trouble there was in that poor woman's who wended her way into a bush settlement to die and be buried with the first fruit of be,- unhappy mairiage. You' see I have told this story in something like about a column' ot reading, which will cost the subscriber to this weekly publication allowing for the other matter lie gets with it,th*o fractional part of luilf a farthing. Ilad Wilkie Collins or Aliss liraddon got, hold of it, neither could have given it to the world in less than three volumes demy octavo,price one guinea and a-half. I