A STRANGE ILLUSION.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume IV, Issue 835, 6 January 1883, Page 2

A STRANGE ILLUSION.

[“home news.”] Australia appears to have been unconscious of the fact that it has recently harboured a dangerous murderer. The desperate acts of Mr Timothy de.Vm® were known only to himself. This olalefactor came Home a few days agd in the Manora from Brisbane, and on- ! the

voyage confessed to his Crimea ‘ r ’’He had done for the second of the Gulf of Finland steamship \yjien lying in Sandridge harbor,, near Melbourne. He also admitted that helhad murdered Captain Blunt, , of f *he Diomed. Color was given to 1 -the statement by his strange dtfmeanof on board the Manora, where he had threatened to murder several of the crew. He was put ,in irons in consequence, and came Home a prisoner. Onsthe arrival of the Manora Mr de Vine had an interview with the sitting magistrate at West Ham, and was charged with murder upon his own confession. Closer inquiry, however, elicited the fact that his statements varied considerably. He stuck to one confession and denied the other. One witness, however, came fqnyard who swore that, although there* had been a quarrel between De Vine 'and Mr Gray, the latter had received no worse injury than a black eye; while a second declared that Mr Gray, had come Home in the very ship Mantra, and was at that moment alive and ,well. Medical evidence was accordingly called in to speak to the prisoner’s : mental condition, and it appeared that he -iras only a lunatic, with a bent towtftds homicide. Fortunately he has, ; rto^yet

given practical effect to any of the delusions which oppress him, and he was remoyed from.the Police Court to a work-house; tn iomc to a lunatic asylum, it is probable' that Mr De Vine will have no opportunity of doing 'his ' enemies much harm.