A PAINFUL TRAGEDY.

Evening Star, Issue 4102, 20 April 1876, Page 4

A PAINFUL TRAGEDY.

4- ’ few days ago we reported the death er very painful circumstances of Mrs xOmas Scott, of Takaka, but were unable T o give any particulars as nothing beyond bare rumor had then reached Nelson. Since then, however, an inquest has been held, when evidence was adduced which may be summarised in the following brief narrative ; Thomas Scott, the husband of the deceased, had for some time been drinking very heavily, and on Sunday, the sth March, he returned to his home in a state of delirium tremens. On that same day his wife, a young woman of twenty-nine years of age, gave birth to her seventh child, and the scene of misery that the house presented at that time, with the wife in childbed without medical or any other assistance whatever beyond what could be afforded by her children, the eldest of whom was a boy of fourteen, the husband in a state of temporary madness, and tbe little ones having to shift for themselves as best they might. This state of things lasted from the Sunday until the following Thursday, when Scott went out to work on his laud, and tbe children left the house to play outside. Before very long one of the children named Ellon heard tbe report of a gun in the house, went inside to see what was the matter, and there saw a sight which will probably haunt her to her dying day. The room, as may bo imagined after what we have related, was in a horrible state of filth and confusion, and on the floor lay her mother perfectly dead, the upper part of her head having been blown off by the gun, which was lying on her body. The poor little thing ran out and gave the alarm, and a man named Webles, who was passing at the time, went into the house and saw the sickening sight as she had described it. At the inquept, after the above facts bad been elicited, the jury returned a verdict of “Determined suicide,” adding a rider censuring tbe husband for the brutal conduct that had driven his wife to take the fatal stop. On tbe following Sunday the remains of the , unhappy woman were conveyed to the cemetery for burial, but the Rev. C. Moon, of Wakefield, who it was intended should read the service, refused to do so, as the verdict was equivalent to one of felo de se. Under these circumstances the body was. lowered info the grave amid indignant mutterings at what was felt to be such uncharitable conduct. The friends of the deceased intend to prosecute inquiries into the whole of the circumstances attending this painful case.—* Nelson Mail.’