OUR PARIS LETTER.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2091, 4 December 1879, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

Paris, Oct. 11. A sad drama has just been enacted at Lille. A widow named Juilc Matinee was married on Monday to a quarter master of gendarmerie'named Bingicr. The were on the point of leaving for (heir now home at Chinon, when they received the visit of one Espcl, who lived with his mot her on the second floor of thchousc occupied by the bride. ■ After breakfasting together in the most cordial maimer, Espel embraced them and bade them adieu. Bingier then went out to fetch a cab which was to take them to the station ; but on his return, after a lapse of ten minutes, a horrible spectacle met his view. Espel was laying lifeless in the passage, his head half-severed from his

body and a razor tightly clasped in his right hand. Seized with ah awful presentiment, Singier rushed into the room ay here he had quitted his wife a few moments before, and found her on the floor in a pool of blood. Her throat had also been cut. At the cries of (he < unhappy man the neighbors poured in, and a doctor was immediately sum- ( • moned; but nothing could be done; for both were dead. Jealousy would appear to nave prompted the crime, and it was rumored that Espel was opposed to the marriage of the widow, whom he wanted to wed himself. Some curious effects of the recent storms arc reported from the provinces. At Tarbes the inhabitants were surprised about ten o’clock at night by the sudden arrival of a flight of quails, some thousands in number, which alighted on the houses, and even in the roads, in a terrific scare. The 'Ntmrods of: the town, turned out and did fearful execution. From Pau a similar nocturnal invasion is announced. The streets there arc said to have been i swarmed with the birds, many of which . entered the houses where there happened to be a light. A Montelimart,. in the Drome, about 1000 sparrows were killed by lightening.