THE HAWTHORN MYSTERY.

Evening Star, Issue 4149, 14 June 1876, Page 2

THE HAWTHORN MYSTERY.

Our Melbourne correspondent writes : “What is the matter, and howto mend it?” I take up exactly where I left off, only turning a bare phraSe into a query—ls it inevitable that a community m£st always have something “the matter with it?” It seems so. Political activity is certainly subdued, bat then the criminal phase seems to he exaggerated. Berry and party fail to get np even a tea meeting, and still more conspicuously fail to pay for past pleasures of that class, hut per contra we have snch a crop of horrors as we have not had for some time. Outrages on women and children are the staple; a mysterious disappearance and a suicide are the garnishings. The “Thomson” case comprises the two latter. A widow of that name kept a haberdasher’s shop at Hawthorn ; her son, a very young man, lived with her, and occasionally went on hawking trips round the country to the east. On the last of these excursions he got into bad company, and squandered his returns. His mother was much distressed at this, and in her lamentations to some friend, hinted at a speedy escape from .• her annoyance by “making away with herself.” No more seems to have resulted, and things resumed their usual course The woman suffered much from liver complaint, and sometimes hinted that she would go suddenly to sea, perhaps to America, to obtain relief. Shortly after Easter her son and his cousin (a girl from the country staying with her aunt) went out for a walk. During their absence Mrs Thomson was seen by some neighbors walking in a direction away from her house, and has never been seen since so far as reliable evidence can be obtained. Occasionally the youth was asked about herpand replied that she was all right, would l» back soon, and soon. Then he suddenly disappeared. The up-country relatives were informed, came down to look sifter the little property, and after sleeping in the house one or two nights, being annoyed by a bad smell, sought for the cause, and found it in the body of young Thomson, who Lad hanged himself in the roof. His feet had actually

buret through the ceiling of one of the rooms and had never been observed. Here ends the tale. The utmost care in searching has not availed to trace tho missing woman or to throw light on the motives of the suicide.