AUSTRALIAN SUMMARY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume IV, Issue 142, 15 May 1884, Page 2

AUSTRALIAN SUMMARY.

CONFESSION OF A CONDEMNED MAN WIFE MURDER AT SOUTH MELBOURNE. DOUBLE MURDER IN TASMANIA. |"Spocii»l!y Compiled for the Evening Post.] (Per s.s. Hsuiroto.) Sydney, May 6. William Rice who was recently executed for participation m a fatal outrage on a woman, addressed a letter to ilia father on the night bcforo he wv.s hanged, admitting the justice of his sentence, but- saying that the ciime was committed while he was overcome and imvd with drink and. rendered furious by passion.. Mklbouiink, May 0, A plasterer named Browning, residing at Bays-place, South Melbourne, mudercd hi? wife on Sunday iiiylil by •■ knocking her brains out. The husband and wife quarrelled m the afternoon. After having beaten, kicked, and junped on hi j r, he struck her with a moulding-board on the back of her head. When the police came they found her quite dead, the body being one mass of bruises. Browning hrtd'lifc v fire m the middle of the room Both were recent arrivals from Sydney. Browning; seemed sober when arrested, but had been drunk. There are four children left, the eldest being nine years old. The deceased was respectably connected. • Hobari, May 5, A horrible murder was discovered yesterday. The wife and the child of a man named Stocks, who resided m the neigh bom-hood of Hamilton, about 40 miles from this city, were missed i shortly f.fter he had been oidered by ' a magistrate to maintain them. Constables searched Stocks' premises, and a stench m the garden induced them to dig there, when the bodies were discovered. It is supposed that Stocks first shot them, and then battered his wife's head with a stone. The accused and his cousin, a man named Jenkins, have been arrested on a charge of murder.