WIFE POISONED BY POST

Hokitika Guardian, 29 August 1928, Page 3

WIFE POISONED BY POST

THE .MAGIC PHIAL. NAPLES, July 10. Tomasso Martin, a handsome young Italian, married his cousin, a pretty girl of 19. He was a lazy fellow and had had a dozen love affairs; but tlie pretty girl was in love with him and refused to listent to the warnings of her family. Tomasso might be a bad jot but slie loved him. atul marry him she would and marry him she did. The young husband soon regretted the loss of his freedom, and found his wife’s love a nuisance ; so to cut himself adrift he announced that he was going to the United Stales. He was going to make his fortune, and when be had enough money he would send for his wife. Time wont hy and as his letters held out no hope of speedy reunion the pool girl, who was still helplessly in love, raised the money for the voyage and arrived unexpectedly in New York.

A COLD YVELCOM.E. Tomasso welcomed her coldly, and hi> behaviour was such that at last* she saw that there was nothing for it hut t return to Italy. She could not make up her mind to break with him because she >till loved him, and they wrote to each other from time to time. She became ill nnd wrote to tell hei husband. He replied that he loved her that he longed to help her. that lie had made much money and was coming tc Italy with an American delator, who would undoubtedly cure her. And the letter almost worked a cure. But Tomasso did not come. He sent another letter to say that his business prevented his leaving the United States

and with the letter he sent a little phial containing a white powder, which he said was a medicine of almost miraculous power. He had got it for her from a famous American doctor. She was. he wrote, to go to a stream in the neighbourhood of her home, if possible the stream near tl.e Yal Grande, and to drink it there. Si.e was to tell nobody and she was to burn the letter. found by tourists. An so tlie girl, who could not believe* that her husband did not love her went to the stream and took the mec - ieine. Excursionists found her lying dead on the bank. She had not had the heart* to destroy the letter, winch revealed the secret of the murdeie across tlic Atlantic, and the doctoi

who examined her body ifound that she had died of poison. The Italian authorities applied for the arrest of Tomasso Martin. He had disappeared from New York, and it is only recently that he was discovered and arrested in a little town of Uruguay. He is under lock and key , and will he extradited to lie tried for his crime.