ATTEMPTED MURDER

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2479, 17 March 1882, Page 3

ATTEMPTED MURDER

AT THB Chatham Islands. By the steamer Akaroa, whioh arrived at Lyttelton this (Friday) morning, from the Chatham Islands, news is received of the following attempted murder there. On the night of March 7th, a carpenter named William Gordon Jacobs, the owner of a block of land, fired four shots from a revolver, three with the object of killing his wife and one at his eon. The firing was done from outside the honee at whioh Mrs Jacobs and her boy were staying at the time, and the first shot hit her on the breast and glanced along, passing through her left breast and out under the armpit. The direction of the ball was thus turned by coming in contact with the woman’s corsets. The second shot hit the table in tbe room, and at that moment Jacobs’ boy ran to the door and called, “Don’t, papa —don’t,” when Jacobs turned the pistol towards him and fired, but fortunately missed bis son. After sending another ball through the window of the dwelling he decamped. It seems he returned to his own house, and told his family that their mo. ther and brother Willie were “no more,” and that before the morning he himself would be dead. He next took some cartridges and a loaf of bread, and started off into the bush, where he was captured the day following by Messrs Moore, Todd, and Shane. Jacobs was brought before the Magistrate and formally committed for trial. Ho would probably be sent on to Lyttelton in the brigantine Omaha. Mrs Jacobs was attended by Dr. Cooper, and when the steamer loft was on a fair way to recovery. The husband and wife had not lived on good terms together for some considerable time previous to Jacobs’ attack upon her. She had separated from him a few days previoui, and betaken herself to a neighbor’s house, the place the attempt on her life was made. They have a family of eight children, for whom a good deal of sympathy is felt.