A Sensational Story.

Manawatu Herald, 13 February 1894, Page 2

A Sensational Story.

A very extraordinary story is told by a London correspondent. The wife of a wealthy German gentleman died in the University College Hospital, nn<l the husband, in paying his last visit to her body in the hospital mortuary, placed on the fingers of the corpse nine costly rings, The body was soldered down in a leaden shell, which was placed in an oak coffin ; but certain circumstances having come ' to the knowledge of the undertaker, his suspicions were aroused, and on proceeding to the hospital mortuary he found that the oaken coffin had been unscrewed and the leaden coffin cut into. Strange to say, he allowed the corpse to be buried at Brompton Cemetery, but meeting the husband there he told him what had happened, whereupon the husband obtained on order for exhumation f.nin the Homo I Secretary, and found thai, four of (he nine ring* had been stoleu from the dead woman's hnnd. An extraordinary hospital scandal is, of course, threatened ; but if the romance appeared in a novel it would require some greater maiks of probability than the published version of tbe reality contains. First of all, what is the wife of an exceedingly wealthy and well-known gentleman, even though they had been living in lodgings under a false name, doing »in a hospital ? "Why is she buried

from v hospital mortuary ? What induced the husband to trick oft" her dead body with costly rings ? Why did the thieves not t:iko the •v'lole nine ? and why did the undertaker, on finding that the louden sholl which he had provided intact had beon cut, into, allow the funeral to t.a'- ■■' • hpfore saying a word 1 manding an explanahospital authorities ? tho badly-constructed >>me sensational Christmas . but in its main features the iV is sufficiently well founded.