The Potteries Examiner : — 1872-08-03 (Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England)

MURDER OF A SON BY HIS FATHER. A shocking ease has been tried before the Court of Assizes of the Seine—sic., the murder of a son who was in the Vorssillett army daring the Commune of Paris by his parents. The names of the accused are Pierre Joseph Louie and Marie Euphrasie Hamard, both 51 years of age, and parents of (strange to my) fifteen children. During the sanguinary times which followed on the departure of the troops to Versailles, both father and mother espoused the Communist cones, the father taking a most active part in the insurrection. The feet that their son was in the army outside the city greatly exasperated them, and both father and mother were frequently heard to menace him with vengeance, the mother invariably saying, when speaking of her son, "I should not be at all sorryto kill a Versaillaie—a drinker of blood, like that." The father was of a ferocious disposition, and, together with his wife, had spent the whole of their fortune in drinking, irregularity, and debauchery, and the fortunes of the five sue. viving children were, to his intense disappointment, settled on themselves. The eldest son, Peter, the victim of the tragedy, knowing the antecedents of his father, and the part he took in the March insurrection, and all the events which followed, took a small lodging for himself when he left the service a few months afterwards, in preference to returning under the parental roof. On the 13th of April of the present year he went to his mother's laundress to reclaim some linen which his sister had left there two months previously. The mother, on hearing this, went on the 14th to demand her linen, which the son offered to give up on the reimbursement of the sum he had paid for it—viz., 3f. 75c. The whole day was occupied in sending messages to and fro concerning the linen, and at eight o'clock in the evening the father, exasperated, aml with his wife in a state of intoxication, went to his eon's lodgings, ; and invited him income down into the street, where he called him a "drinker of blood," made use of the vilest epithets, and challenged him to fight. The son replied that he would never fight his own ' father; on which his mother, excited by drink, seized him by the hair, and, whilst she held his head back, the father plunged a knife into his heart, killing him on the spot. The depositions of the witnesses, principally the children of the murderers, were conclusive as to the totally drunken and demoralised existence of the parents; as for the tragedy itself, both father and mother disclaimed any intention of taking their Ben's life, notwithstanding their reiterated menaces in presence of neighbours' and their own children, who were present when the crirae was accomplished. The jury, after ton minutes' consultation together, rendered a verdict of guilty, without any mention of extenuating eircumstances ; and both father and mother were condemned to transportation for life.  EMIGRATION TO BRAZ/le—The Government Emigratior. Board have just issued a "caution to emigrants," which seems to be required at the present moment. It appears that the Brazilian ConsulGeneral has, under instructions from his Government, issued a notioe inviting " good agricultural emigrants " to settle in Brazil. To this there can be no objection, but intending emigrants ought to be made aware of some of the difficulties which they are likely to encounter. In the first place, the climate of the greater part of Brazil, with the exception of the lofty tablelands, is entirely unsuited to the outdoor labourer of Northern Europe. Then the passage out is somewhat expensive, upwards of £3O being required to take out a party consisting of man and wife and two young children. The price of land is also high, and, on the whole, intending emigrants ought to think seriously before taking a step which would be irretrievable. The report by the Emigration Com. miasioners, on which the caution just issued is based, conclndes by strongly dissuading British subjects from risking health and independence for an inadequate remuneration in a trying climate, among people of habits eas differing from their own."