A MUSIC HALL TRAGEDY. A FATHER REVENGES HIS CHILD'S ILL-TREATMENT. A SAD STORY. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) London, June 27.

Te Aroha News, Volume VII, Issue 389, 31 July 1889, Page 6

A MUSIC HALL TRAGEDY. A FATHER REVENGES HIS CHILD'S ILL-TREATMENT. A SAD STORY. (FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) London, June 27.

A profound sensation Was created at the Canterbury Music Hall (which is one of the largest and smartest in London) on Friday night about eleven o'clock, when it became known that the head of the Lebine tioupe of acrobats, for whose torn the audience were even then waiting, had been stabbed and mortally wounded whilst getting out of a cab at the door a few minutes previously. His murdorer, so the story went, : had shot himbelt wioh a rev6lver after knifing Letine, and both men had been carried off- to Westminster Hospital in a dying condition. The circumstances of this crime (if indeed crime it can be called) proved on inquiry to be "very poculiar. Letine says the "Daily News" of Monday hod given a performance at tho Paragon Music Hall; in the Mile-end Koad, and had di iven from thence to the Canterbury Music Hall in the Westminster Bridge Road, in company with his wife and his ' troupe ' of "three young girls and a child. They travelled in a private omnibus, and Letine had nosooner stepped oub than he was attacked by Nathaniel Currah with a formidable knife, and such wounds were-inflicted in the abdomen of the unsuspecting performer that he only lived half-an-hour or &o after reaching St. Thomas's Hospital, which was nob very far off, and to which he was promptly carried. What was said by the assailant on confronting his victim is variously repoited, bub it was something to the effect that "I have waited for you for a long while, and now I have got you." According to one account, he added, " You killed my Bjatie, and I'll kill you." There can be nob the least doubt that the man had for a long time past been fretting under the conviction that his child had died in consequence of ill-usage on the parb of Mr and Mrs Letine. We are not, ot course to be understood, to give at present the slightest support bo any such charge, bub there can be nodoubb ab all that Currah believed it. As a matter of undisputed fact the girl had left home a handsome, well-de-veloped, spirited child of thirteen, and she was brought back by Mr and Mrs Letine in about twelve months a mere, wreck. "As sdon as 1 saw her get out of the train, 5 ' said her brother on Saturday, "says I to myself, you'll be a corpse any day," and medical examination proved* that she was suffering from enlargement of the heart, acute bronchibis, congestion of bhe lungs, and pleurisy, and thab she was altogether in a A r ery emaciated condition. Cray ford is a village in Kent, about sixteen miles from London Bridge. It has a population of four or five thousand ' inhabitants, and for twenby years and more Currah has been engineer of bhe small waterworks) supplying the neighbourhood.' Everybody knew him and his children, and down there it is universally allowed that the changein the child wasashockingone. They are all agreed, too, that he was a steady, respectable man, of rather a lively, jocular disposibion. He is said to have been very averse to the girl's proposal to join Lebine's troupe ; bub she and a young schoolfellow had seen the advertisement, and were crazy tO gO. The Schoolfellow's father- stoutly refused his consent, and kept his girl at home ; Currah reluctantly yielded, and when his bright, handsome girl came home 'to him shrunken to a skeleton and fatally shattered in health, some degree of remorse evidentlymingled with his indignation. The girl received medical attention and wenbfdr atimflto a convalescent home, butshelive'd only for nine or ten months, and died lait February. By general testimony the man was fond of his children, and proud of bhem ? as_he might well be, for they are exc'epfcionally handsome. Currah felfc the death of his child most acutely. As she lay inthecoffinhewasseen to pass his hand softly over her f bro\v, " in a strange way," said the narrator, " and he said, * My poor child ! you've been-^rmurdered !' " Ever since February last it is agreed on- all hands th'afc'^Currah has been an altered man. . His son — an intelligentlooking young fellow, found on Saturday in charge of the waterworks, to which his father was expected to return for duty on the day he was lying in ambush for Letine — says bhab he became strange and rambling and excitable in his manner, and all his neighbours testify to the same thing. They say he was morose and churli&h, and would frequently talk in a' rambling, incoherent way. He became, in \ fact, quite another man. Of course Mr Currah's belief/ thab the ruin of his child's health and her early death weredueto the treatment experienced under the hands of Mr and Mrs Letine may be entirely a delusion. There: are some , facts which certainly would suggest the belief that it must have been so. After this girl Beatrice had ,been with Lebine some time, an older sister, Gertrude, engaged herself with him. Mr and Mrs Letine and their troupe lived in a good"sized^ old-fashioned house — more than comfortably furnished, if the drawingroom affords any criteron, at the foot of Denmark Hill. Relatives on bhe premises affirm thab all the troupe had the run of the house, were treated in all respects as members of Mr Lebine's family, that they travelled professionally in a private omnibus, and at other times in a carriage and pair, an arrangement probably tound needful, as they usually gave five performances at different halls in one night. They were always treated with kindness and liberality, and those who know them in bhe music-hall world speak well of bhem. There, are, however, statements on the other side which mo doubt will have to be examined in opan court, and the public will have an opportunity of judging 'for themselves as ,to the -alleged wrongs of Beatie Currah. It is quite certain thab Currah .himself believed his daughter had been ill-treated, and ib is, moreover, a matter of newspaper record ,that the fact of the girl's engagement wibh Lebine and reburn home in ruined healbh came bo bhe knowledge of bhe Socieby for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, who appear bo have had reason bo believe bhab a litble boy at that time in his hands was illtreated and neglected. A summons was taken out ab Lambeth Police Court, and the girl, whose health was alleged to have been ruined in the employment, appeared as a witness againsb the Letines. The case, however, was dismissed. Five months later the same society brought another charge againsb the acrobat trainer, at Cardiff, which was the last place ab which the poor girl had performed* before going home to die. The socieby represented themselves in a position to prove bhab Beatrice Currah had been broughb from her bed and compelled to go bhrough a public performance when she was ill, and that in order to give proper roundness bo her shrunken limbs her ' tights were carefully padded. But here again the case broke down, though this time withoub having been fully heard oub, the prosecution collapsing on some rjoint of dates, Ib seems certain that Currah had from the firsfe resolved, to be revenged for what he be-

licved.to be theill-usageof his daughter,,and, probably if these charges against Leiine had been sustained,, he would' have been in a certain sense satisfied. JBufc they failed, and," that," said an intimate friend' of his on Saturday, ," made him .more excited Wi irritable ijhan ever." His son says thsit of late he had acquired s all sorts of strange habics, such as nervously tying knotsin bibs of string, an,d .incessantly talking to Himself. He would break cmb in the most violent passion, and would swear in a way he n^ver was accustomed to do,, and! on more than one ocqasion he was evidently, contemplabing suicide. He had written to. Mrs Fawcetb, having heard oi her interest' iv performing children, and gave hei| au account, which she afterwards published, of the sufferings of his child. * It is said that .he. would .brood ' for hours upon a picbure over his mantelpiece in which some children A were represented hanging flowers on a cross bearing the inscription, " Our little one, 3 ,whicl| he would occasionally murmur to himself. He called some six weeks ago at thei office of the socioty in Harpur-stroot, Bloonisbury, and appeared to be in a very distressed condition. He couldn't sleep, he told them, , but thought of his poor child night and, c(ay. ( 'Last week he was seen wandering m khe fields near his houso without his hat. 'On Friday last his son says he was like a madman, and from his appearance he had, on'tho morning 1 of that day, evidently been crying. In this frame of .mind Currah started ior London on Friday morning, having, it is said, made his, will, in which he leaves w%at he possesses to his present wife, whom he married before the death, of <his child. It seems thao he" also drew up some sort of a statement of his intentions, but all concerned in the matter are naturally very reticent about this. With or without such written statement, however, there etui ibe little doubt that he started from his home with the desperate purposed taking his i*evengc, in which he was only too successful. Mr Letine, when he stepped out of tho vehicle, wore his professional " tights " and spangled costume under a coat and trousers. Currah's stab was.low down in the abdomen, and the blade gashed upwards in a frightful manner. A relative of the victim thinks there must have been two thrusts. However . this • may have been, Letine seems to have m2fcie a step or two after, his assailant as he j turned to walk away, and then had only time to gasp, " I am dying !" and fell to the ground. An instant after Curiah pub a pistol to his own mouth and fired and also fell, and the murderer and murdered lay weltering in blood in ,the roadway. Both were conveyed to St. Thomas's Hospital, Avhere, as reported in "The Daily News," Mr Letine died within half an hour of his admission. His assailant had been less successful in his attempt on his own life, and seems likely bo recover. Tho general feeling in the neighbourhood of Crayford is one of regret taat the revolver should have failed to effect its purpose. Whatever may be the degreo of moral responsibility under which the deed was committed, the unhappy man unquestion-, ably was actuated by a real or imaginary grievance of the gravest possible kind, and a grievance, moreover, for which he had failed to bring retribution in a court of law. On inquiry being made at the hospital at a late hour last night, it was stated that Currah had so far recovered that he had been removed to the Clayton Small Waid, where he is in custody and watched by the police. Yesterday afternoon his wife paid him a vioit, *>"fc she orilv remained a short time. Currah appeared quite rational, but did nol realise his position." He spoke principally of his dead daughter Beatrice. ( He seems to have no recollection of the deed he committed. . •