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HORRIBLE MURDER AND

SUICIDE IN TASMANIA.

The Chudleigh correspondent of tho Laun cestón Examiner gives the following account of the tragedy reported by telegraph in llts Argus of lhuraday last -

Tor Bome years back a man named lohn Lambert has resided in a two room»d hut at Mole Creek a few milos from Chudleigh, on a small farm belonging to tho Messrs 1 îeld a portion of which is used by them oa a calling place for cattle and drovers from Gad s hill station Lambert has frequently lind Bomeono or other living with him but his morose and sometimes quarrelsome dis position generally caused them to leav e him as soon as possible 1 or the last five months a man named Isaac Richards and his wife have been living with Lambert, but have had a great deal of trouble with him on account of his quarrelsomo disposition, his last freak being to spread a report that they were try ing to poison bim Richards waa so annoyed by it that he informed Mr James How a neighbour, on Monday morning lost, that he was then going to Deloraine to lodge an information against Lambert for spreading the report

On Tuesday morning as Mr How, who resides some distance from the hut on the Deloraine road, was driving a team along tho road at ') o clock he saw, aa he supposed a man standing on a log fence a Bhort distance from him under a wattle tree, but on driving n little further, he discovered to his horror that the man was hanging from the tree

with a rope round his nock, and apparently

dead He immediately went to a neighbour ing farmer named David Roae who weut with him to the spot, and they identified the body as that of the man Lambert han^mit by a Bin all ropo about the sir-o of a clothes line, and quite dead On looking towards the hut, a distance of about 300 yards, they saw that the door waa closed and no smoke coming from the chimney, which arouse I their suspicions that the worst was not yet known They then left the body where it bung and entered the hut, and on goiut, into the bedroom a bombie Bight pre sented itself to their view. There loy the unfortunate woman RichardB on the floor enveloped in the bedclothes which were saturated with blood, a large pool of blood was also on the floor On finding life ex tinct they loft the hut, closing the door after them and one kept watch while tho other went to Deloraine and informed the police

On the arnval of tho police a further search was roado, and the man Richards was found in a dying state on the bed, unable to speak Tho instrument of death was a round bar of iron used as a poker-the imanes inflicted being of a most brutal nature A bottle of laudanum waa found on the table, a portion having been used Richards on being asked by the (suponnten dont of police, if he knew him, answered in the affirmative but nothing more could bo elicited from him-although It might have been very different had medical aid been obtained Neither of the medical men in Deloraine (for some reason or other) would go It is much to be lamented that the only individual who could possibly throw any b¡,bt on the subject is dying without medical at tendance One of the magistrates of the district also refused to accompany the superintendent of police to take any depositions that might have been given by the dying man The man Lambert has been a notoriously bad character, having served six years at Port Arthur for cattle stealing, and been twico arrested for the murder of a man during his sentence Tho tragedy has caused a groat sensation in the whole Deloraino district.

An inquest was held on the body, whan the jury returned a verdict to the effect that the woman Richards was murdered by Lambert and that Lambert committed suicide The man Richards was not dead, but his recovery was regarded as quite hopeless

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