"THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS IS HARD.”

Evening Star, Issue 4126, 18 May 1876, Page 4

"THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS IS HARD.”

A Northejaucontemporary says the history of the woman Nellie Duncan, ■who was recently burned to death at Timaru, was a somewhat singular one. She was the daughter of a respectable hotel-keeper of Scarborough, and was a very pretty girl. She, however, went wrong at an early age, and for some time led a fast life in Plymouth. EJere she met a man named Swale, and the two emigrated to Canterbury as man and wife. They took passage by the ship Ivafifioe in 1864, and on the way out Mrs Swale behaved very respectably. Fever broke out on board j thirty-six deaths occurred, and many of the passengers were ill. 'Mr Swale was exemplary in her attendance on the sick and dying* proving a perfect ministering angel. Her conduct was most highly spoken of, and was the more appreciated as the captain find surgeon Were inattentive and dissolute, the former dying of delirium tremens a few days after arrival in Lyttelton. Swale and Nellie Duncan quarrelled soon after coming to Christchurch, and parted company, she again taking to fast life. Swale went into business as a grocer in partnership with another man, whom he subsequently quarrelled with and murdered. Singularly enough;.:.the manner of the murder was by fire. He set fire to the house in which his partner was asleep, and the unfortunate man was burned to death. For this crime Swale was hanged. Since that his ci devant wife has gone from bad to worse. She has proved the ruin of many men. One case with which her name was connected, was that of Bain, the former clerk to the Bench at Christchurch. He was a married man, bub became ensnared by this woman, took to drink, and finally embezzled certain Government money to enable them both to bolt to Australia. He, however, was arrested in Dunedin. Nellie Duncan did go to Australia, but returned to Canterbury to meet her fate by being burned to death after a drunken orgie in a miserable hut at Timaiu.