A PERILOUS FEAT.

Manawatu Herald, Volume II, Issue 20, 31 October 1879, Page 3

A PERILOUS FEAT.

A man named Asa Broughton, who killed Covert Bancroft on the 14th May, at Modina, U. S., in effecting his escape into Canada, performed one of the most perilous feats on record. Broughton had a remarkably handsome wife, and he was desperately jealous of Covert Bancroft a prominent business man of Modina. Impelled by jealousy Broughton drew a. pistol and shot Bancroft dead. He then went home, bade his children good-by, and went away. Broughton went to the house of a cousin in the town of Hartland. [On the Friday after the murder the cousin saw the account in the newspaper. He refused longer to give shelter to Broughton. The latter started at once for Niagara river. ,At Lewiston a suspension bridge formerly spanned the river. Some of the old wires still extend across the stream at an elevation of 100 ft above it. Broughton, confident that officers were on his track, reached the site of this old bridge. Fearful that by trying to cross the river at Suspension bridge he would endanger his safety, he determined to gain the Canada shore by means of the wires. He sat on the bank of the riv*»r all Friday night, and at daybreak on Saturday began his perilous crossing. Hand over hand, suspended in air 100 ft above the river, he made his way toward the opposite shore. The wire swayed to and fro with his weight. Several times he had to pull himself up and clasp his legs and arms round the wire to rest his hands, which were badly blistered and cut. When about halfway over, Broughton says he thought he must loose hold, so nearly exhausted was he. .By frequent rests, however, he finally completed his precarious journey When he landed on the other shore he was unable to proceed further for an hour. Officers Fuller and Allen, of Modina, who were in pursuit of him, arrived on one river bank as tfroughton arrived on the other. He went to Hagersville, Ont, where he was apprehended on Wednesday. He returned to New York State without making opposition. He says he killed Bancroft in self-defence.