The Sun. — 1870-03-31 (London, England)

NEW TROPPMANN.  The Court of Assizes in Hainaut has just concluded tfie trial of Dessous le Moustier, a criminal who rivals Troppmann in the character of his offences. He is charged with five murders and numerous robberies and forgeries. The indictment against the prisoner sets forth that the three brothers Thirion, residing in the Belgian Luxemburg were partners, and trading in cattle. All three were at the inn of St. Barbe on March 12, 1868, and left on that day. 4 Two of them disappeared from that time and the third came back on the Ist of April to the suburb of ifavre,in Mous, andleft on the 3rd. He, too, was missed from that day. The Procureur du Roi was informed of the affair, and inquiries were made in all directions, but in vain. The police of France, Holland, and Belgium were applied to but with! no success. The truth was that Dessous le Moustier had murdered them, and the bodies of two of them were in the old well in the yard of his house. The third was in a holel by the wall of his sheepfold. The prisoner had had some money transactions with the brothers Thirion, and had ; evidently murdered them for the purpose of becoming possessed of their property. His next victims were his , wife and his father-in-law, whom he feared because they knew of his crime. He administered poison to . his wife, who gradually sank, but not before the suspicions of the doctor were aroused. His father -in - law had died the preceding winter, and the poisoning of the wife having .excited the suspicion of the magistrates, his body was disinterred and arsenic, was found. Therefore Jacques Dessous-le-Moustier, alias' Charles, was accused-Ist, of having at Hornn, on the 13th of March, 1868, wilfully murdered Nicholas Thirion, and; robbed him of certain valuables, among them of a sum of ' £6O ; 2nd, of having, at Hornn, on the 15th of March, 1868, wilfully murdered Gustave Thirion, and robbed him of certain valuables, among them a promissory note of • £6 • 3rd, of having, at Hornn, on the 4th of April,.lB6B, wilfully murdered Pierre Joseph Thirion, and robbed him of certain valuables, among them about £2OO in gold and notes; 4th, of having, at Hornn, in December, 1868, wilfully murdered 3. B. Havrez by the administration of arsenic ; sth, of having, at Hornn, in October, 1869,1 wilfully murdered his legitimate wife, born Florence; Havrez, by the administration of arsenic ; 6th, of having forged a promissory note for £4O, dated Ath, October 1869, bearing the forged signature of Louis Loisselet, and ' discounted that forged note in October, 1869. On Monday the trial was finished. The jury were of opinion that the crimes were premeditated. They did not believe the prisoner guilty of poisoning his father-in-law. The prisoner . received his sentence with a smile. The court pronounced judgment, and sentenced Dessous-le-Moustiet to death, and condemned him to pay the costs of the trial. The prisoner left the court laughing.  Mr. James Ashbury, the owner of the schooner yaciip Cambria, has written another letter to the Times on the subject of the challenge which Mr. Douglas, the owner of the Sappho, gave to all England. Mr. Ashbury has offered Mr. Douglas the choice of six series of races, and Mr. Douglas has accepted three races of 60 miles dead to windward and back in the Channel; no Adition or time allowances. Mr. Ashbury remarks that the question at issue is not which vessel, American nr English, is best off the wind. but which is the best on a wind, and the series of races to windward on and about the Ist of May will probably settle this point in a eonelusive manner, nothwithstanding his disadvantage and the disparity in size between the Sappho and the Cambria—the former being from 380 to 400 tons, as against 188*