Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1892-10-01 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

REIGN OF CRIME. FRENCH MURDERS AND SUICIDES.  Domestic dramas succeed one another with marvellous rapidity in the feverish world of Paris. A day or two ago a young farmer named Duteil, while ' returning home in his cart to Che-y in the Department of the Yonne, saw two persons—a man and a woman—lying as if asleep in a corner off the high road. As the rain was falling heavily at the time, Duteil, surprised at what he imagined to be the carelesness of the pair, jumped out of his cart and went to wake them up. On closer examination, says the Daily Telegraph Paris correspondent, he saw that the two persons were all but dead. The man was in his shirt sleeves and the woman had thrown her mantle over her knees. Blood oozed from wounds in their temples. Close by was the man's hat, and under it the farmer found a purse containing a small sum of money and a memorandum book. On one of the leaves of the book were scribbled the words "Sept. 20th, '92.—We have both voluntarily killed ourselves, and we ask to be buried together in the cemetery of the place in which we have died." Then followed directions for the aespatch of two telegrams to be found in his pock( t-book and some initials. The telegrams were addressed, one to M. Bigot, of the Rue Tocqueville, Paris the husband of the woman, and the other to M. Lebreton, of Clichy, father of the man. Duteil informed the gendarmes of the matter, and a magisterial investigation was held. From the position of the bodies it was conjectured that the two persons had sat down, and that the man first fired at the woman and then turned the weapon against himself. The woman had been shot through the left temple, while her companion had put a bullet through his brains. Be also had marks of a wound on his right jaw. Despite his injuries the man was still breathing slightly when the magistrates and a doctor arrived, but he soon ceased to live. This mournful affair was the tragic termination of a love episode which recalls the Chambige and Vladimiroff cases. Madame Bigot was an exemplary wife and mother until her acquaintance with Lebreton, a friend of her husband, and who was also married. The parties lived in the Batignolles district, and were fairly well off. A mysterious murder has been committed at Fontenay-sous-Bois. M. Plista, a commercial traveller, who has a villa in that suturb, had been absent with his wife in Switzerland for a month's holiday. Ile wrote to his housekeeper, a middle• aged woman named Maria Molles, to state that he would return. The latter, who could not read, shewed the letters to some neighbours. On Saturday M. ['lista found his house robbed, and the *l:hoy of his housekeeper, who had been strangled to death, in a fowlhouse at the bottom of the garden. M. Goron, the chief of the detective service, is endeavouring to find a clue to the perpetrator of this new crime.  A lady named Merino, living in the Avenue de Villiers, Paris, committed suicide, on Saturday, under very painful circumstances. Madame Merino, whose maiden name was Alexandrine Gorska, was, a Daily chronicle correspondent says, married some years go to M. Jose Merino, the son of M. Pedro Merino, of the firm of Merino and Sons, Leadenliall-buildings. The union was strongly disapproved of by the husband's family because Mdlle. Gorska had been an actress. It appears, however, that an allowance was paid to M. Jos6 Merino on the condition that he should keep away from London and Paris, in both of which capitals he had relations. The husband died lately, and Madame Merino, whose mind seems to have been affected, accused Dr. Voisin, who attended him, of poisoning him. The Procureur of the Republic formally declared the complaint unfounded. When Madame Merino received the news she went upstairs, and after having written several letters blew her brains out.  A few days ago it was announced that Dr. Alfred Leach, of Belgrave-road, London, was dead. He was an important witness in the Bartlett case (known as the "Pimlico Mystery") in 1888. His death, the lianekvier Courier says, was due to the inhalation of sewer-gas while investigating the cause of a patient's diphtheria. It wat wonderful he did not kill himself in his Bartlett case experiments. Noticing the dead man's tongue was of a peculiar white he searched for the significance of it by experimenting on himself. He took three and a half drachms of chloroform in his mouth, swallowed 20 to 30 drops, ejected the remainder, and produced on his tongue the tell-tale whiteness on the dead man's. He related this in evidence as being gait* a matter at course.