A SERVANT'S FREAK.

Auckland Star, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 154, 29 June 1907, Page 13

A SERVANT'S FREAK.

WANTED TO CREATB A SENSATION. LONDON, May 17. Qnite a small army of Warwickshire policemen were occupied over last weekend in trying to find the perpetrators of an alleged outrage upon a domestic servant named Nora Davis, employed by a farmer at Wroxall. On Saturday afternoon it appears the farmer and his wife went to Warwick market, and when they returned they fouDd Davis lying at tbe bottom of the stairs apparently iv a semi-conscious condition. Her hands were fastened behind her, her legs were bound tightly together, and her mouth -was gagged. The house had evidently been ransacked from top to bottom, valuables had been packed as if ready to be taken away, and nearly all the windows were smashed.

When the girl had been restored to consciousness she told a dramatic story of the occurrence. She said that while in an upper room three men wearing masks entered, struck her on the head, and gagged and bound her. After a time she recovered, crawled to the top of the stairs, and rolled to the bottom, where she was found. She bore a number of bruises about her body, which gave support to her statement. The police were communicated with, and the country around was scoured hy po'lcemen without result. Then it occurred to an inspector that ther» were circumstances in connection with the "outrage" that required explanation. The girl, he discovered, had no bruise on the back of her head where she said the burglars hit her, and all the knots used in trussing her up, except those to her hands, were tied in front of her, .whereas the girl swore that she had been lying face downwards when tied up. There were other little discrepancies in her narrative, and by dint of pen»istent cross-examination the inspector finally got the girl into such a tangle of contradictions that she voluntarily confessed that the whole story was bogus. She had, she said, planned the affair solely to cause a sensation in the neighbourhood, and wake folks up a bit Prior to this escapade the girl had shown not the slightest trace of possessing a romantic turn of mind. She was a hard-working and particularly wellconducted servant, and the fact that she should break out in such an extraordinary manner has filled her employer and his neighbours with amazement. One can hardly help sympathising a little with poor Nora's desire to create a little excitement for herself and Wroxall. The life of the average domestic on an English country farm in out-of-the-way places like Wroxall is the essence of deadly dullness. It is hard work from early morning till bed-time seven days a week, with only church on Sundays, and perhaps a few hours at the fair once a year to break the flull monotony of the daily round.