STRANGE CONDUCT OF A GIRL

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2048, 28 January 1889, Page 3

STRANGE CONDUCT OF A GIRL

(PER PBESS ASSOCIATION.) Wellington. January 27. A cobs surrounded wi:h most peculiar circumstances was reported to the police yesterday. It appesra that on Friday night Mr and Mrs G. H. Scales, residents at the Hutt, eight milis from town, were preseat at a ball m that suburb, and on returning home at one o'clook on Saturday morning cries of murder were heard from a,room occupied by a domestic servant named Lydia Elliott Mrs Soles roßhed to tbo room, and found ber tied to tbe foot of the bedstead, and the girl complained of being outraged by two men. Complaint was at ones made to tbe local constable, who wired to Inspector Thompsou, and by the 2.5 p.m. train Detectives Eirby and Campbell were despatched to make enquiries. Enquiries were at once made of the girl Elliott, who is a strapping country girl of eighteen summers, and m her statement to the detective officers the declared that about eleven o'clock on Friday night she heard the dogs connected with the honee bark ing, and on getting out of bed to ascertain the cause two men dressed m moleskins, with shirt and boots on, and faces masked rushed into the house and dragged ber to the room. She then desoribed that one of them, who was of small stature, hßd held her while his companion committed the outrage. They had, she Baid, also cat most of her hair ofi^ end on the detectives searching tbe room they found hair, evidently from the head of Elliott, strewn all over the room. Continuing her story the girl said that the men, of whom she gave a most minute description, tied ber to the bed &nd then departed by means of the window. The woman was closely examined by tbe officers on every detail, but her testimony was not to be shaken. On being askei if she had any objection to be examined by a medical mail, who would bo able to state if an outrage had been committed, she at first gave ber assent, but being requested by the detectives to visit a looal doctor, she refused, aud made the confession that tbe whole thing was a hoax. Tbe girl had first tied her feet and then her body to the bed, finally binding her wriato to the same, and the detectives state that tbe manner m wbich she accomplished it was quite a " work of ert." Wbat could have possessed the girl to have her hair cut off and act m the manner which created quite a sensation at the Hatf, the detectives are at a loss to explain, UDleee it was to gain notoriety.