A SINGULAR STORY. STRANGE CONDUCT OF A WELLINGTON SERVANT GIRL. Wellington, Jan. 27.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 338, 30 January 1889, Page 5

A SINGULAR STORY. STRANGE CONDUCT OF A WELLINGTON SERVANT GIRL. Wellington, Jan. 27.

A cask surrounded withmostpeculiaroircumstances was reported to the police yesterday. It appears that on Friday nigh fc Mr and Mrs G. H. Scales, residents at the Hutt, eight miles from town, were present at a ball in that suburb, and on returning home at one o'clock on Saturday morning, cries of murder weie heard from a room occupied by a domestic servant named Lydia Elliott. Mrs Scales rushed to the room and found the girl tied to the foot of the bedstead, and the latter complained of being outraged by two men. Complaint was at once made to the local constable, who wired to Inspector Thomson, ,'and by the five minutes pa§t two ' p.m. train Detectives Kir by and Campbell were despatched to make inquiries. Inquiries were at once made of Lydia Elliott, jwho is a strapping- country girl of eighteen summers, and in her statement to the detective officers, she declared that about eleven o'clock on Friday night night she heard the dogs connected with the house, barking, and on getting out of bed to ascertain the cause, two men dressed in moleskin, with shirts and bootson, and faces masked,rushed iuto the house and dragged her to the bedroom. She then described how one of them, who was of small stature, had held her while his companion committed the outrage. They had, she said, also outmost of her hair ofl, and on the detectives searching the room they found hair, evidently from the head of the girl Elliott, strewn all over the room. Continuing her story, the girl said that the men, of whom she gaye t a most minute description, tied her to the bed, and then departed by means of a window. The woman was* closely examined ,by the officeis in every detail, but her testimony was not to be shaken. On being asked, if she had any objection to be examined, by a medical officer, who would be able to state if an outrage had been committed, she at first gave her assent, but being requested by the detectives to visit the local medico, refused, and made a confession that the whole thing was a hoax.""* The girl had first tied her feet, and then her' body to the bed, finally binding her wrists to the same, and. the detectives state that the manner in which she accomplished it was quite a work 1 of art. ,What could have possessed the girl to have her hair cut off and act in a manner which created quite a sensation in the Hutt the detectives are at a loss to explain, unless it was to gain notoriety.