The Sun. — 1858-12-17 (London, England)

HORRIBLE MURDER IN FRANCE.  Accounts were given at the beginning of September of the finding of the dead body of a girl, about 15 years of age, hanging to a tree in the neighbourhood of Pantin, a village near Paris—of the discovery, on examination, that she had been grossly outraged and then murdered—and of the arrest, a few days after, of her. uncle, one Parang, on suspicion of having committed the crime. Yesterday, this man was brought to trial before the Court of Assizes of the Seine, and the case excited considerable interest. The indictment, after stating the finding of the body early in the morning of the 31st August, and describing the outrage to which the girl had been subjected, said that a handkerchief, tied tightly round her throat, bruises on her face and person, the marks of a severe struggle having taken place in a field at a few yardA from the tree, and lastly, the manner in which the bOdy was suspended to the tree—all showed that the deceased had not committed suicide, but had been murdered. She was meanly dressed .at the time, and had in her pocket two rosaries, a medal of the Virgin, and a small copper candlestick with a piece of candle, but she had nothing on her to show who she was. It then proceeded to say how the murder was discovered. In the evening of the 31st August, a labourer named Loriette, whilst looking at a mountebank who was exhibiting in the Place de la Bastille, got into conversation with a man standing by his side, and after a while said :—" Frightful crimes are being committed in Paris now-a-days ! This morning, the dead body of a girl was found hanging to a tree, and she must have been murdered!" On that, the other man, who was a stranger to him, turned pale and staggered. Loriette added that a piece of candle had been found on the girl, and the stranger cried, "Why, it-must be my niece ! I had a presentiment on seeing her put the candle in her pocket that something would happen !" And then he proceeded, in a manlier which seemed very singular to Loriette, to say that his niece, though very young, was exceedingly vicious ; that she had made the acquaintance of a man at Vincennes, who had offered her 800 f. to visit him ; and that she had been away from home all the preceding night. He then asked Loriette where the body had been found, and the man said he thought it was somewhere in the neighbourhood of La Villette. The man pretended not to know where La Viliette was, and Loriette said that as he worked there he would, if he called on him very early the next morning at his lodgings in, the Rue St. Antoine, show him the way. The man, after stating that his name was Parang, and that the name of his niece was Lucie Parang, went away. The next morning, accompanied by his wife, he called at Loriette's lodging, but finding that he had gone to his work, he proceeded to La Villette, and calling on the commissary of that place, stated that he was the uncle of 'the girl who had been found murdered. The commissary sent him with a police officer to the commissary at Pantin, and on the way he repeated again and again that his niece had been of loose conduct. On entering the office of the commissary at Pautin he saw the cord with which the body had been suspended, and cried—" That is my cord ! " He also recognised the candlestick found on her. He then related that on the previous evening the giel and himself had left home to purchase a cord for a turning lathe—she putting into her pocket the candle and candlestick with which she had lighted him downstairs—that after a while she had given him the slip, and that all his attempts to discover her had been fruitless. Although his story seemed strange, there was nothing to wfxrant his arrest. But after a few days it was ascertained that all he had said about the girl's immorality was scandalously false—that he himself had made repeated attempts to corrupt her but in vain—that on the evening of the 30th of August, she, by his direction, had gone out with him and had accompanied him to the Rue du Vert Bois, where he had purchased a cord of peculiar make and of certain length—that this very cord was the oi,e with which the girl was suspended—that the girl was not afterwards seen alive by anyone-who knew her—that he had not returned home until late at night, when he was without the girl, and could not account for the manner in which he had passed his time—and, lastly, that he had scratches on his hands and face, and stains of blood on his linen, which he could not explain. In court, the man was interrogated at some length on the various points in the indictment, and he answered with considerable cunning, maintaining that he was innocent.. Some witnesses were then examined, and after hearing the'public prosecutor in upport of the indictment, and M. Nogent St. Laurent for the prisoner, the jury, after half an hour's deliberation, brought in a verdict of guilty, and the Court condemned him to death. He retired without saying a word.  At Rochefort, in Belgium, three days ago, an experiment was made with some works for the distribution of water recently constructed. The King of the Belgians and the Count de Flandre having to pass on that day through the place on their return from the shooting lodge of St. Hubert to the chateau at Ardennes were requested to examine the works. H.M. and H.R.H. kindly consented, and both on arriving and leaving they were most warmly cheered. [