TRAGEDY IN HIGH LIFE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1447, 18 May 1881, Page 2

TRAGEDY IN HIGH LIFE.

Neapolitan society has lately been much exercised by. a terrible tragedy in high life. for some time past the Countess del Cigno, a lady of extraordinary beauty, had been notoriously at odds with her husband; a gentleman to whom she had, at the Urgent instance of her family, most unwillingly given her hand, h,er heart having already been, bestowed up m a young. Austrian artist, who quitted Europe for America on the day of her marriage,- only returning tbenoe-to Naples a few weeks ago.. He became a frequent guest at the Countess’s evening receptions—a fact which reached the eans of Count delCigno at his club, where hespent 'the most of his time by night as well as. by ,day.. One evening, just as the painter Was issuing from the doorway of the Palazzo del Cigno, the Count drove up to the chief entrance, and, while alighting from ]iis. carriage, noticed his wife on the balcony Waving her: hand in farewell to her old lover as he descended the stone steps leading to the street. • Without hesitation the Count drew a stiletto from the bfeast pocket of his coat and buried it to the hilt in the bosom of his rival, who fell, mortally wounded to the ground. As Del Cigno was getting into his carriage, however, a bullet from the Austrian’s revolver, fired, as it were, in eXtremir, passed through his head, killing him on die spot. Five minutes later the artist < also breathed his last. This horrible encounter took place under the very; eyes of the Countess, .upon wHorn the' spectacle of her husband’s and lover’s violent death inflicted so overwhelming a shock that she became a raving maniac, and is now under restraint in a lunatic asylum at Naples. , %