ANOTHER MYSTERY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 819, 15 December 1882, Page 3

ANOTHER MYSTERY.

[by telegraph.] Auckland, To-day. A warrant has just been issued for the arrest of Miriam Hamilton and Thomas Priestly, a Presbyterian student, charging ' them with the wilful murder of the former’s husband. Hugh Aitken Hamilton, who was supposed to have met his death on the night of the 28th ultimo by falling head-fore-most upon the edge of an iron bedstead while in a state of drunkenness. The coroner’s inquest resulted in the finding of a verdict, “ That deceased met his death by accidentally falling against an iron bedstead.” This, however, did not satisfy the deceased’s relatives, and at their instigation the police began to make further investigations, as in the meantime some ugly * rumors were being circulated. It was alleged that the widow had been improperly Intimate with a young theologian, the student, who taught in the same Sunday school (St James’s, Presbyterian) as deceased, who lived next door, in her mother’s house. The police saw both parties .separately, and each of ' them made contradictory statements. With great patience Superintendent Thomson and Detective St rat hern followed up the trail, and yesterday |having got all the outside testimony possible they had the prisoners’ property and abodes searched, the result being the discovery of a pair of dark tweed trousers in Priestly’s box, bearing traces of comparatively recent blood and of an axe in the widow’s house, which also showed faint marks of blood, as if there had been an attempt to wash them out. The affair has caused a great sensation. Priestly was a convert from Roman Catholicism, and Hamilton, the Secretary of the Orange > Lodge, while Mrs Hamilton was a Scotch Presbyterian.