AUCKLAND.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3578, 29 December 1882, Page 3

AUCKLAND.

December 29. The mau Olsen, who committed a murderous assault on his wife, was charged with tbe offence at tbe Police Court yesterday, and was remanded for eight days. He is a Norwegian seaman belonging to the schooner Christiana. The captain and crew state that Olsen was temperate and quiet. The woman Elizabeth Oleen has been married twice. Her first hu.band, by whom she had several children, was named Brown. The match with Olsen has not been by any means a happy one, and their quarrels led to tbe Bench granting the woman a protection order, and compelling her husband to pay £1 per week towards ber support. Tbis happened five months ago, and as a natural consequence the husband and wife have been living apart since then. He went to her house on Wednesday night with the object of effecting a reconciliation, but she refused his overture., and declined to live with him again.

He laid down on a sofa in the parlor, and she went into her bedroom, taking two of her children to s-leep with her. At midnight he went out into the back yard, and is supposed then to have got hold of an axe which was in the yard, and three hours later he attacked her in her sleep and fled out of the bouse. He is supposed to have attempted suicide on his vessel, which was 100 yards distant, before or after the assault, as the clothes be had been wearing were found wet on the deckj of the schooner and he had changed his clothes. After some time Mrs Olsen recovered consciou.nefs at the hospital, and seemed disposed to talk of the assault. She says she was married in June last to Olsen, "her name before that having been Mrs Brown, and that from the very day of the wedding up till the present time she haa been bounced, bullied and ill-treated by her husband. Mrs Olsen is a robust woman of 37 years of age. She is somewhat better, and hopes are entertained of her recovery. There is danger that erysipelas may set in, but the copious flow of blood will render it less-imminent. Mr G. K. Tyler, solicitor, has retired from the defence of Priestley. Mr Rothe, the representative of the Colonial Sugar Refining Company, and Mr Muir, tho company's engineer, arrived by the Te Anau from Sydney to commence the immediate construction of the company's refining works at Duck Creek, North Shore. The first instalment of the machinery is expected from England in eight monshs. The Government Domain had a narrow escape of being burned on Weduesday. Some smoker threw a match in the undergrowth, which blazed fiercely. A quarter of an acre was destroj'ed before the fire was suppressed.