Ancther crime which has had a curious sequel, not finalized yet, away out in a small township within 100 - miles of Melbourne. An elderly woman was dying' of cancer, and she made a perfectly legal arrangement with a sort of knockabout man to give him her property provided he looked after her. The arrangement seems to have worked for a time, and as the woman became worse the man and- the neigh-hours appear to have been disturbed, and someone told the man that if the woman died without medicinal attention he would get into trouble. he man, it wag known, even made arrangements for her to be taken to a hospital, though at the last moment were cancelled. Then in response to inquiries by neigh-ours he said that she had taken a trip to Darwin, the lone outpost in the Northern Territory where the very fleas are numbered.
This absurdity aroused suspicion, and after much searching the police found presumptive evidence that the man had burnt the body in an old iron tank, and thrown the ashes, calcined the house. The man, after Fung bones, etc., into the river alongside
frequently and variedly, admitted that tha woman had died, that he Wag scared of trouble, and that he had burnt the body, subsequently entangling himself in a hopafess web of lies. He was charged with murder, but after one abortive trial the jury surprisingly brought in a, verdict. of "guilty of manslaughter." This had never even been put to them by the judge or counsel. It was the original verdict of the prisoner's peers. Appealing to a higher court it has been given that the: verdict acquits the man of murder. The judge of first instance thas promptly given the accused ten years' hard labour. A further appeal is now going forward to see if a, verdict of manslaughter cannot be upset, and if if can be the man cannot be tried for murder because he has been acquitted. and if he is charged again with manslaughter it is unlikely that any jury would convict. The manslaughter of course consisted in his not calling in medical aid against, as he alleges, the woman's wishes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.