Shot Dead.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 3, Issue 40, 12 January 1883, Page 2

Shot Dead.

TRMHC DEATH. A STAGE BLUNDER. (Per Mail Steamer.) The play of " Sir Slocam" has ended .with a real tragedy. At the end of the fourth act at matinee m the Colliseum Theatre, Cincinatti, on Nor. 30, Frank Frayne's Company was playing with Frayne as Sir Slocum, and Miss Annie Von Betren as Mrs Lucy Slocum. Everything went off brilliantly till the end of the fourth act, when the villain Markham, who has captured Sir Slocum, says, " I'll have your wife's head, and with a backward shot." Misß Yon Betren, who had been performing m that role since the i death of Frank Frayne's own wife some two years ago, Btepped lightly to her post, where hue stood with an apple on her head, looking the very personification, of wifely truthfulness and con* fidence. Sir Slocum adjusted the mirrow slowly, the wife was 30ft away, bis aim was deliberate and Blow, and he was never more steady of nerve. Bang went the rifle, the apple did not fall, but the girl dropped full length back* ward, with a dull dreary thud on the floor, and the apple rolled away ton wards the footlights. Her face was partly hid behind a wing of the scenes. With the flash of his rifle, Frayne himself sprang as he had been shot and turning towards the pro3tiate girl, ran m a wild, plunging, staggering sort of way till he fell on the floor beside her, with one arm reßtiug on her body. The curtain then fell over all. Mrs Slocum fell without a moan, and lay motionless, Sir Slocum lay m a swoon behind her. The other actors ware discreetly silent. . As soon as she curtain iell Miss Yon B«.tren was carefully borne to her stateroom, and a surgeon .arrived immediately, but it was of no uae ; she neyer moaned or spoke, and scarcely moved. In fifteen minutes after the bullet stiuck her; she was a corpse. Frayne was also carried to a stateroom. As soon as he recovered sufficiently he came out and knelt by the side of the almost lifeless' girl $ and pleaded with her to speak. She heard nothing, and gave no sign of conscious* ness. The actors rushed to their room | after the death scene, and gave way to overwhelmiag [grief. Frank Frayne was taken to the station and locked up on a charge of murder. When taken there k he said to the officers, " Make the charge as'severe as you can. Make it the woist." On the 6th December James Pert was similarly served by his brother John at an amateur performance n Chicago. A law f inhibitive of this kind of " amusement " is now spoken of.