TELEGRAMS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume III, Issue 320, 30 October 1875, Page 2

TELEGRAMS.

A MOTHER KILLS HER TWO CHILDREN WITH AN AXE. (From the Weekly Herald, Auckland.) THAMES. Our community were horrified by the perpetration of as foul a deed as ever was committed, being no less than the butchery of two children by their own mother. The facts, as clearly as can be ascertainted at present, are these : In a bylane off Owen-street, Grahamstown, several children were playing marbles in front of a small house, when their attention was arrested by the action of the owner, Mrs. Walls, who was observed standing over her two children chopping at them with a large axe. On screaming out, the neighbors ran to the scene, one of them calling out to the woman ; she laid down the axe and came towards them, asking, “ Who told her to do it ?”

On examination of the children, the eldest a boy about eight years old, was found to have been beaten with the butt end of the axe about the head till it was fractured, and scarce a bone remained entire.

The girl, who was about six years of age, had been cut across the neck and top of the head with the sharp edge, in such a fearful manner that the brain protruded in several places. No hopes were of course entertained of their recovery. The boy died in about half on hour, but the girl lingered on for one hour and a-half before she succumbed. The woman was arrested, apparently in a state of unconcern. The innocent victims of this ruthless and mad act were the children of Mr. and Mrs. John Walls, who arrived in the colony, from Belfast, Ireland, in the year 1861, and for the past eight years have been resident on the Thames, where the father Las borne the character of a quiet, hard-working man. His wife was also highly thought of. She was of a strong frame, robust constitution, but for the past two years she has evinced a passion for drink. The scene of the murder has been visited by great numbers, and the bodies of the children, Patrick Henry and Mary Anne, shewn to many of the visitors. Great interest and sympathy has been expressed towards the bereaved father. At the close of the inquest the Coroner summed-up, and the jury returned the following verdict: — “ That Margaret Walls killed her son Patrick Henry Walls, but entertained doubts as to her sanity when she committed the deed.” The Coroner remarked that this was equivalent to a verdict of wilful murder, and that he perfectly concurred in the opinion expressed by the jury. The jury would be required to hear the evidence on the second charge, that of killing Mary Ann Walls. Great excitement throughout Grahamstown.