The Sun.
London, England, 1858-01-29 00:00:00

ADULTERY AND HOMICIDE.

Our Paris correspondent has already hinted at
an affair which has created much sensation in that
cdpital. It appears that at the beginning of this
month a hairdresser of Mont de Menial' killed M.
de Garidel, Councillor of the Prefecture, whom he
found with his wife, and that he immediately after-
wards gave himself into custody. On Saturday
this man was brought to trial before the Court of
Assizes of the Landes. His name is Laterrade, his
age 42, and his bearing on the trial was suitable
and modest. The court was crowded to excess.
The prisoner, who was somewhat agitated when
first placed at the bar, but who soon recovered his
composure, having answered the usual questions as
to his name, age, and occupation, the indictment
was read. This document was unusually brief and
set forth these facts :—On the 3d of this month,
at about eleven at night, the prisoner, who had
been supping with a friend, returned home, and
found his wife partly undressed seated by the fire-
side. She complained of a violent stomach ache,
and her husband proposed to make her some
gruel, but she refused, and after a while sud-
denly left the room, taking the candle with her. He
bad noticed that she seemed agitated and had cast
anxious glances towards a large arm-chair. He
removed the chair, and found a ratan behind it.
This man seized him by the throat, threw him
down, and, kneeling on his breast, tried to strangle
him. At this moment the woman returned, and
cried to the man, "Do not kill him ! 0 God ! do
not kill him I" The man then released him, and
the prisoner saw that he was M. de Garidel ; where-
upon, taking a sword-cane with which he had en-
tered the room, and which he always carried, he
drew the sword and plunged it into de Garidel's
breast. M. de Garidel fell to the floor without
saying a word, and expired. The prisoner Subse-
quently went to the police, related what had taken
place, and gave himself into custody. " Wh4t the
indictment alleges," said the prisoner, when the
reading was concluded, "is exact. It does not
give all the details of the scene, but I do not con-
tradict anything that it says." " You ought," re-
marked the President, "to have taken legal pro-
ceedings to obtain redress for the injury de Garidel
did you, and not to have killed him yourself."
" I do not know, sir, that I should have been suf-
ficiently master of myself to do what you say, but
the fact is that de Garidel did not leave me time to
reflect, for being much stronger than I am he threw
me down, and kneeling on me grasped me by the
throat with such violence that he almost suffocated
me. My wife, hearing the rattle in my throat, came
in, and on her entreaties be released me. I confeass
that this new insult, following close on the outrage
of my honour as a husband, exasperated me,
and I stabbed him. I had no idea that he
was serioinly wounded, neither had he him-
self, for he begged me to be calm, and offered
me money. " Money I" I cried, indignant
at such a proposition, and I struck him in the face
with the cane, and broke it as you see. (Here the
prisoner pointed to the cane which was lying upon
the table.) It was then that, without saying a
word, he fell. Not knowing why he fell, I gave
him a kick, and exclaimed, " Oh, don't play a
comedy here !" I then went downstairs, and not
having the slightest idea that he was dead, walked
to and fro before my door, expecting him to leave,
but not seeing him went up-stairs, and to my sur-
prise, found him dead. I then gave myself into the
hands ofjustice." The statement which the wife of
the hairdresser made to the examining magistrate
after the fatal event was then read ; she said that
up to the evening in question she had not had any
criminal connection with M. de Garidel, but on
that evening she had consented to commence one,
and that he was in her chamber with her full per-
mission. When her husband returned home de
Garidel bad not undressed himself, but had re-
moved his watch, and he was seated in an armchair
opposite to her. She then described what had oc-
curred when her husband entered, and how he
had stabbed the other. She had, she said, given de
Garidel a rendezvous on that evening because she
knew her husband had long been jealous of her,
and in consequence they used to occupy separate
rooms ; but she did not believe that he had sus-
pected de Garidel, or that he had had the slightest
intention of killing him when he returned home.
The woman added :—" Before I gave the ren-
dezvous to de Garidel, I expressed my fears
that if my
husband were to discover us he
would kill us both. 'Oh l' answered de Gari-
del, never fear—l am a strong man and I would
strangle him Ab, you would not do that !'
said I with a smile. Well,' he answered,
would not kill him, but I would give him such a
squeeze that he should be insensible for a time !' "
Some witnesses were then examined, and the jury,
after a very brief deliberation, returned a verdict
of acquittal. The Court ordered the prisoner to
be discharged, and as he left the dock a number of
ieuds gathered round and warmly congratulated
him.

ST. MARTIN'S HALL.—A rather extraordinary exhibi-
tion took place at this hall last evening. A very young
man, Mr. C. Coghlan, undertook to read, in public, a
four-act tragedy of his own composition, dressed in
" the costume of the period," the age of Charles the
First. As a piece of writing this play calls for no
particular criticism, being neither markedly good nor
specially bad ; it is filled with the usual attempts at
Elizabethan interjectional quaintness, while the 'sore
high flown portico much resembles the worst parts of
Mr. Sheridan Knowles's dramas. Mr. Coghlan's mannerwas perfectly self-sufficient, and his eloeutire
e
k
tolerable, but it is evident that a reading, like
weightznslevoices,
where an untried artist sustains the endtirie.
characters, has to simulate male snx,
will
the
stage
and, moreover, to interpolate become wearying and
directions, must necessarily 0
h unhappy one, was
of the
The ides. thong of
monotonous.
worthy
a happier notion.
carried out with a spirit