EXTRAORDINARY MURDER IN FRANCE.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Issue 1, 6 October 1877, Page 4

EXTRAORDINARY MURDER IN FRANCE.

(From the " Standard's " Paris Correspondent.) Tt is a long time since the papei's were so full of extraordinary crimes as they are at present. The public have barely time to read one before another crops up to demand their attention. We have already during the past few days chronicled several remarkable cases, but the" cause culebre" 1 am now about to mention is perhaps even more curious and interesting. It came before the assizes of the couches du Rhone. The facts deserve to be given at some length. On the 2Gth of July last, about six o'clock in the morning, as the train from Marseilles to Toulon passed under the tunnel of Ciotat cries were heard to issue from a second-class compartment. The travellers in the adjoining carnages rushed to the windows and shouted out "Murderl Murder ! " but the train proceeded on its way, and it was not until it reached the station of Ciotat that a .Marseilles tradesman named Bubaton got down and ran to the compartment whence the cries bad issued. He was about to enter it, but, on opening the door, he was slopped by a suffocating small, However, after a few seconds of ventilation, he managed to penetrate in the waggon, where a horrible sight met his gaze. On one side lay the body of a well-dressed young man, and on the other that of another man, who appeared to lie waking from a profound lethargy. M. Bttbaton seized the latter by the arm, and said " You have murdered that man," but he paid no attention, and declared that be was suffering from atrocious pains. The station master at once sent for a doctor, who applied an emetic t<> him, while the body of the other man wits taken to the dead-house. As soon as the sick man WBI better he gave bis name as Ivluurad de Hotivn. and mud be was an engineer, and lived at Marseilles. Ho got into the train at Cassis. Then' wire two \ ng men in the OOmpartment; they Haiti they were commercial travellers in the wine trade. He got into conversation with them ami (hay offered him a glass of champagne,

But be had nosoonw drunk il than be was received with horrible pains in the stomach and became insensible. What took place afterwards he did not know. While Buoyn was making this statement, | a gendarme examined his valise, which was found to contain a gold watch, a medallion, and a purse with tfi frans, which had evidently been thrust into the ; valise in a hurried manner. At the bottom of the valise, hidden in a small bag, were also found a kind of chemical apparatus—an indiarubber syringe, glass tubes, two bottles tilled with red and white liquids, and other objects. Bouyn declared that he did not know to whom the watch, medallion, and purse belonged; as for the other articles, he had bought them to make chemical experiments. He persisted in his strange statement, and said that if a murder had been committed it must have been done by the third passenger, who had drugged him. The body of the other man was soon identified as that of a member of a respectable well-to-do family named itozes Salles, who had just gone through his examination at Ecole de Saint-Cry, and was on his way to Toulon to join his brother-in-law, a lieutentant in the navy. The post mortem examination showed the young man had succumbed to cerebral congestion, caused by a violent poison, and a.s the bottles found in the valise were proved to contain prussic aeid, the doctors concluded that Bouyn had squirted the poison from the syringe on to the victim. The prisoner, however, persisted in his lirst. statement, and eon. tinned to assume a kind of madness; but after a few mouths' detention he resolved to make a confession, and a remarkable one it was. lie said that desiring to invent a destructive of immense power, he prepared some prussic acid in a bottle, to which he fixed a syringe in a way that he could squirt the poison on any body at a given moment. Finding himself alone with another passenger, he was tempted to try the experiment on him. Later on, he disclosed to the authorities a grotto, situated in a lonely spot between Cas-sian and La Ciotat, where he had fitted up a small laboratory, and apparatus with which he marie the prussic acid were found. At first the doctors thought the prisoner was mad, but on examination they declared him to be sane and responsible for his acts, and he was consequently sent before the assizes on the double charge of poisoning and theft. The jury found a verdict of guilty with extenuating circumstances, and lie was serftericed to 20years' hard labor. " Vou would have pleased me better if you had sentenced me to death." exclaimed the prisoner to tin-judge on being led out of Court.