TRAGEDY IN FLINDERS LANE.

Globe, Volume IV, Issue 479, 30 December 1875, Page 3

TRAGEDY IN FLINDERS LANE.

{Melbourne Argus , December 18.)

A shocking tragedy was enacted in Flinders lane last evening. A man named John Makiwitz, stated to be a native of Dantzic, and about forty-two ye<rs old, who. it is said, at one time kept the Empire Hotel in Hotham, but had lately been employed in some capacity at St George’s Hall, and was in very straitened circumstances, was married a year ago yesterday to a young woman, but they did not live happily together. The woman, who is rather good looking, states that be was very jealous of her, and illtreated her soon after marriage and subsequently. They lived together, however, till about a week ago, when the woman ran away from him, and took a house at 136, Little Flinders street east, not far from the detective office. It appears from what follows that the woman gave him cause for jealousy, and that brooding over this he came to the determination to kill himself in her presence, in order that she might ever after be haunted by the horror of hisdeath. Yesterday morning he wont to his wife’s house and got a sovereign from her, for the purpose, as he said, of taking outof pawn a greatcoat andsome shirts preparatory to going up the country with a hawker, but in reality it appears for the purpose of buying a pistol and ammunition with which to kill himself. The woman was very much frightened by his manner then. At about six o’clock in the evening he returned and knocked at the door, and was let in by a little boy, who, after opening the door, went out the back way. The man walked into the bedroom were his wife was, and looked at her in such a terrible manner that she crouched against the bed, and implored his mercy. He struck her, and then showed a pistol, and pointing out that he had twisted round his finger a lock of the woman’s hair, pushed her suddenly backward upon the bed. Bhe screamed, and at the same instant felt something like a puff of wind pass over her head, a loud explosion, and fainted. On recovering she saw the man lying dead across the bed in a pool of blood, and his brains scattered over the bed and floor. She gave an alarm, and Constable Slattery being fetched by a boy, went to the place. He found the man lying on his back on the floor in a pool of blood, the left side of his head blown away, and his brains scattered about. The sight was a horrible one. The man seemed to have fired the pistol into his mouth. His left eye, the left side of his face and head, and all the inside of the head, were blown away, and the bulk of the brain was lying in a lump in the centre of the bed. Beside his left hand was a small single-barrelled pistol, and near his right hand was a letter. The wife of the deceased, Alice Makiwitz, said that the man tried to shoot her first, but from the contents of the letter it does not appear that he had any intention of killing her, but that he succeeded in doing exactly what he wished, namely, shooting himself over the woman’s living body. The woman said the man’s name was Mankovicb, but the name was spelt by the police as given above Below is given a copy of the letter as near as it could be published. The writing was very shaky, but tolerably distinct, and the errors in grammar and spelling were much less than might have been expected, considering that the writer was a foreigner, It

contains allusions to his wife’s immoral relations with men, whose names are not given below for obvious reasons. Some of the context also has been omitted, being hardly fit for publication. It will be observed that the writer refers to the day of his wedding and his burial, no doubt alluding to the fact that yesterday was the anniversary of his wedding day. The reference to the detective force apparently alluded to the fact that the woman lived near the Detective office. The letter runs thus :

“December 17th, 1875.—1 write this in my proper senses, and I intended to kill myself to-day some way. My wife left me last week through the interference of the following women and men : —[The next sentence is incoherent.] Prostitution is the best carried on, most successful carried on, under the very nose of the police, as the detective force is an example. ... I don’t sign my name. It will be found out soon enough. I have no money, and I intended to blow my brains out over my wife’s living carcas (?), that she always may remember my (?) in that beautiful life she and her companion are lending, and may the course (?) of God be on here (?), that she shall have the mangled body of myself always before herself, and if my ghost he shall hunt her and drive her to madness, and the worst I wish here (?). [The remainder was written so that it could not be known which portion read first,] I got £1 from my wife, and I paid 4s for a pistol in Gleeland’s. I return the rest to her after paying for powder and shott. I see her at my wedding day and my byrrial (?). I wish to be harried (?) with the lock of hair on my finger I leave my lodging now 10 a.m, to go and see my cursed wife to get some money—the first and last to buy a pistol, and return to her, and take her in my arms, and scatter my brains over her cursed carcase. Amen. N.B.—Myiwife’s name was

Alice Buckley, and you will find from her her brother is an old policeman, and living, I believe, in Dandeuong, Oakleigb, Ferntree Gully, or Sale (Gippsland), at present, I believe. J. M M, married December 17, 1874; died by his own hand December 17, 1875; order for a gravestone.” The tragic event naturally caused considerable excitement in the neighborhood, and a great many people assembled in Flinders lane and wished to see the corpse, but the police in charge of course admitted no one except those who had business in the place. The body remains at the house pending an inquest.