A HORRIBLE STORY.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 344, 3 August 1878, Page 4

A HORRIBLE STORY.

If a horrible story, vouched for by the Messager du Midi, be true, the inhabitants of the Spanish town of Aranjnez most either have a singularly blunted taste, or human flesh cannot be so unpalatable as it is thought to be. We learn from the journal alluded to that for upwards of a year a character residing in Aranjnez has been in the habit of selling to an unsuspecting public, sausages, pates, and houdin, made exclusively with human flesh. So excellent were his comestibles found that he reckoned more customers than any other pork butcher in the town, and having amassed a sufficient fortune, he was meditating retiring from business when hazard brought about the discovery of his malpractices. It seems that within the last year or eighteen months several persons have unaccountably disappeared from Aranjeuz, and in spite of the investigations made by the police, no clue has yet been forthcoming concerning their fate. The missing clue has at length been found ; they have filled the role which belonged to the pig, and their fellow-townsmen have unwittingly eaten them in the guise of charcuterie. The unscrupulous pork butcher was aided in his horrible business, says the Messager de Midi by a coiffeur. The Spanish Figaro's shop where he shared his customers was provided with a trap-door, by which means those among them whom ho destined to death were precipitated into a cellar, Where they were despatched, their bodies being then handed over to the pork butcher. The disappearance of a young man named Francisco Amlral, who was seen to enter the barber’s shop and never come out of it alive, raised suspicion; the police followed up the scent, and discovered the fatal trap-door, the cellar, with-its blood-stained floor, and certain other proofs, which left no doubt upon their minds as to the guilt of the accused. The two miscreants arc now, it is stated in the hands of justice, which, if the history of their atrocious crimes prove correct, will, it is to bo hoped, deal with them according to their merits.