A CRIME CURIOUSLY AVENGED.

Kumara Times, Issue 867, 11 July 1879, Page 4

A CRIME CURIOUSLY AVENGED.

[NEW YORK TIMES.] Last year there was in Rome a modelgirl named Guglia Setacci, who was a wonder of beauty among the painters and sculptors. Two noted sculptors, who were brothers—Ernesto and Gabriel Bagnagetti—fell desperately in love with the siren, who was as coquettish as she was beautiful, and the result was a fierce quarrel in which Ernesto was killed, after which the beautiful ceuse of the fracitcide fled with a young brigand, while the murderer only escaped the law only to fall a victim to the most racking and maddening remorse. The image of the dead brother returned to him in the guise of love, as he had been before the beautiful Guglia had estranged them, and his love for the woman turned to bitter hate. He conceived what the Italions believe in as a sort of superstition and duty—a vendetta ; that is a sworn vengeance. He disguised himself, and, upon the report of a visit to Paris, frequented the haunts of the thieves and brigands of Rome, where Guglia habitually went. He was not long in finding her but it took six months to persuade her into his residence and win her confidence ; which he did, however, at last, and under so perfect a disguise that she never suspected who he was. In carrying out his vendetta he had become poor, and was obliged to work at wood-carving to make a livelihood. He carved figures of saints, and the work was so beautiful that the saints never waited long for purchases. One day, Guglia disappeared suddenly, and three days afterwards, her mangled corpse was found in the Tiber ; but who the murderer was nobody could even suspect. The wood-carver disappeared ten days afterwards, and in his room the landlord found the blood-stained garments of the beautitul model girl and a keen sculptor's tool with evidences on it of the crime ; so that Guglia s s last friend—the wood carver—had done it. But where to fiud him was the question which no detective could answer. In the meantime the sculptor, who had been supposed to be visiting Paris, appeared in Rome agaiu. A month ago—long after the crime had ceased to interest anybody—an artist happened to be in the police headquarters, and noticed a figure in wood of St. Sebastian and was so much struck by its beauty that he inquired who and how it came in such a place. " Why,' said an officer, " that saint was made by the wood-carver who murdered the little model-girl. He left it when he ran off." "Then 1 can tell you who the murderer is," exclaimed the artist : for I'll swear that that figure Is the work of Gabriel Bagnagetti. No other sculptor in Rome could have done it. Gabriel's remorse had been wiped out, but no sooner did the officers confront him with the figure of St. Sebastian and the opinion of the artist than he burst into a frantic fit of rage and confessed his crime. His artistic skill had betrayed him through all his precautions, and by means of his patron saint.