AN EXTRAODINARY CONFESSION.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 197, 18 September 1878, Page 4

AN EXTRAODINARY CONFESSION.

The Pioneer of Calcutta publishes a remarktble confession by a prisoner ntsmed Maitara, at the Lucknow Goal, who lately procured the escape of a fellow prisoner by means of a forged release-warrant. In effect it ia as follows :— " In June, 1868, when in Bombay with the 3rd Punjab Muleteer Corps, after its return from Abyssinia, I made the acquaintance of a young woman, a European, disguised as a Mahomra?daa She told me that she had been carried off from Delhi durin_r the mutiny by a native merchant, and had finally been aboadoned at Bombay. She told me her real name was Wilhelmina Rose. In September, 1868, when my regiment was ordered to Mcoltan, this woman accompanied me. We went by steamer to Kurrockee and by flotilla from thence to Mooltf»n where the corps was disbanded. I then went to Lahore, and obtained employment in the D P.W. Controller's office in March, 1869. We remained at Lahore until July, 1869, when I resigned my appointment, and we found our way back to Bombay. At Bombay we put up in the Byculia Hotel. We lived upstairs and occupied two rooms. Suspecting Wilhelmina of infidelity, I watched her and one dsy caught her with a visitor. A fit of jealousy seized me, and I determined to get rid of her. One evening, when sitting in our room as U6U&I about 9 p.m., drinking some brandy and water, I poisoned her. I mixed a drachm of aqua laurocerasi, and ten to fifteen grains of strychnine in her cup, and this I gave her to drink in a tumbler one-third full of brandy and water. Nothing suspecting, she drank the brandy and water at one draught, and immediately retired to bed. I made myself drunk, and lay down and sbpt on the sofa in the sitting-room. The next morning I found the woman dead. I went to the market and purchased a large wooden chest made of maDgoe wood for srs* This I brought back on the top of a gharry to the hotel, and had it taken up to my sitting-room. When I was alone, I placed the woman's body into this cbest, and fastened down the box. I then went to breakfast, and had the box replaced on the gharry. After breakfast, I drove to the Boree Bunder, hired a boat, and was rowed out of the harbor. Four native boatmen rowed the boat. I bribed the boatmen with 25rs— 100 the four — to throw the chest into the sea returned to the hotel, sold off all Wilhelmina's things in the market, and left for Calcutta by a boat of the British India Steam Navigation Company. This was in the month of September, 1869. I make this confession so as to rid my conscience of a crime that has haunted me since the day I committed it." The magistrates at Lucknow are making inquiries to find out the truth of the story. It does not absolutely follow that Maitara has done what he says. He already expects transportation for life, for various little matters in which he has been engaged. He would not fear hanging, on account of a murder committed a long time ago, and made the subject of a spontaneous confession. But he is a very ingenious person, and may think, that if he were sent to be tried for the murder, something might turn up to give him a chance of getting free.