The Sun. — 1840-09-15 (London, England)

PREPARATIONS FOR WAR.  The melancholy and cruel murder of the bov, Joseph Anizat, at La Villette, and of his mother and sister, at Artigues, near Bordeaux, one of the moat cold-blooded and disgusting pictures of unprovoked crime and hypocrisy ever recorded, have been so fully detailed by us. and are so fresh in the recollections or our readers, that we shall not go into the details of the indictment, which does nothing more than collect the circumstances into one body, and pace them i■ their full light. It fully appears from this document that Elizabide's sole ohject, first of all, in murdering on the 14th of March the poor boy entrusted to his charge, was to get possession of 100 f., which he had brought with him, as also to avoid the expense of maintaining him ; and next, in committing the same dreadful crime upon the mother and sister, to get rid of them, after lie had obtained 140 f. from her at Bordeaux, immediately on his arrival from Paris, as also to prevent detection of his first crime. The letters that he wrote to Marie Anizat flora Paris, after the murder of her boy, in which he pretended to give her news of her son, are quoted in the indictment, and give a striking exemplifiCation of the assassins' hypocrisy, equalled only by that which he had previously shown in inviting her to send her boy to Paris to his care. When he had arrived at Bordeaux, on the Sth May, and had spent a day with his two intended victims, he left them for the greater part of the 9th, and went to inspect the ground which he had chosen in his mind as a good place to destroy them upon. On the evening of that day he took them with him, pretending to go t• his sisters, and getting them into the wood near Artigues, after leaving their conveyance, perpetrated his crime. The prisoner on being interrogated by the Court, opposed no denegations to any of the facts alleged against him, but enr deavoured to account for the crime by being subject to evil fits and mauvais moments. He declared that the idea of killing the poor boy was one that entered his head only at the moment of his committing the crime ; a fact disproved by his having bought the hammer to murder him with during the morning of the 14th March, after meeting him at the diligence, and dining with him. The Court appeared to set no weight whatever on this kind of defence or explanation which he attempted to make. During his interrogation he repeatedly pressed his hands to his forehead, and teemed confused and staggered in his ideas. The first witness called was the young woman from Pau, who brought the boy, Joseph Anizat, to Paris, and gave him into Elizabide's care ; her testimony, as well as that of the Mayor of Artigues, relative to the finding of the body of Marie Anizat, and her daughter, and that of the innkeeper at Bordeaux, to whose house Elixabide returned after the murder at Artigues, were fully eonfirmatory of all the essential facts of the case, for did anything whatever come out to invalidate what they deposed. Other witnesses, twenty-two in number, deposed to minor facts all corrobora►t'tve of the main circumstance. A friend of Marie Anizat at Pau gave bet a most excellent eharaeAer ; stated that she had first become acquainted. with Rizabide from her child having been sent to tile seminary at Betharram and placed under 11;:s tuition. Marie Anizat was a most exemplary awl. Industrious woman, and left Pau for Paris on the repeated solicitations of Elizabide and his promises to marry her. The Court adjourned at four o'clock till Thursday. [At the sitting of the 10th before the Court of Assize at Bourdeaux, the examination of all the witnesses was concluded.' The Advocate. General then addressed the Court, and M. Gergere s father defended the prisoner, being officially charged therewith. After the pleadings the sitting broke up at half-past five, and was adjourned till the following day, in order to hear the Advocate-General's reply, should there be any, and for the summing up of the President and the Jury's decision. During the trial one of the Jurymen was taken ill : he was replaced immediately by a supplementary Juryman.  THE LATE THOMAS SIMPSON,  (From the Commerce of Sunday.)