Scene in Court

Feilding Star, Volume XIII, Issue 142, 28 May 1892, Page 4

Scene in Court

'Nita,' a lady correspondent of the Town and Country Jurnal, writing from Melbourne, says:—' The Courtroom, at the trial of Williams for the Windsor murder, was crowded to suffocation. By whom ? Men and women ; the latter, not as some papers say, of the lower order? — far from it — the relatives of high-placed officials, actresses, singers, relatives of well-known doctors, and many quiet little women of good reputation. True, they only peeped in and retired, and those females who sat the trial out fully merit) all that has been said about them. The atmosphere was stifling. The odours were hot of musk and civet and sweet smelling scents ; and again there was too much of these perfumes apparent in i gome corners. It was a sickening atmosphere in every sense, whether one alludes to the air we had to breathe or that created by the presence of wanton women coming to I make a farce of this tragedy, or the ghastly details unfolded, or that engendered by the presence and conduct of the . prisoner himself. It was most horrible. I am not squeals mish, yet the whole sight sickened me- Artists were sketching the prisoner, and many women engaged on the press sat near him, and gaped till they fairly roused the man's wrath. Indeed, when some privileged ladies went to stare at him eating his dinner he swore at them and threatened to throw some peas in their face, and serve them well right, too, for the man seems to have more sense of what is. decent and becoming in their sex than they have, deparved as he is. There is one point my peep at the man convinced me of, and it may interest lady readers. There is no doubt he is a man of great determination, and his success with the fair sex, whish just now seems to puzzle everyone, is, I think, the result of a dogged determination to gain whatever he decided upon, and his victims have in every case been women of simple minds that he could easily influence. Half the amount of iorce noticeable in his face, united to good qualities, would make a great man. Unfortunately in his case it is at a glance apparent only bad qualities exist, or, as the punsters already have it, be has no " (re)deeming " feature. Miss Koungefell is a very baby-feced and simple-looking girl - just the sort of girl one might expect to believe what he told her.