TRIAL BY FIRE.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 1108, 12 June 1913, Page 4

TRIAL BY FIRE.

SUPERSTITION IN CANADA.

WOMAN BURNED TO DEATH.

Vancouver, May 31

A “trial by ordeal” in the old Saxon way. resulted in a young Galician woman being burned to death at Winnipeg yesterday, Steve Zahrynuk accused his wife, Annie, a bride of a month, of having been unfaithful to him. She protested that she was innocent, and consented to being tried by the ordeal of fire to show the truth of'her declaration.

With his wife’s full approval, Sahrynuk then saturated her clothing with oil, and touched a lighted match to it. He firmly believed that it she were not guilty her clothing would not burn; but the match no sooner touched her oil-sodden clothes than the woman was enveloped in flame.

Driven mad with anguish, she burst out of the house. Her now terrified husband ran after her and tried to beat out the fire, but could not do so until nearly all her clothing had been burnt off. She was taken to a hospital, where she died.

Zahrynuk was arrested, and will be tried for manslaughter. [Trial by ordeal existed in England till late feudal times. A man accused of a crime would consent to or be subjected to a form of torture. If he showed no sign of being in pain, it was taken to mean that he had vindicated his innocence.]