A FRENCH DOMESTIC TRAGEDY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1141, 19 February 1884, Page 1

A FRENCH DOMESTIC TRAGEDY.

A trial has just taken place at the-Court of Assizes of Loir-et-Cher, which reveals an amount of inhumanity almost in credible, even among the most debased and brutal portion of the French peasantry. A meana nd avaricious peas nt, Oocherean, and his wife, received in their home a sister of the former, Madelene Cocherean, who possessed the modest foituue of a few thousand francs, a temptation in their eyes. She was an indefatigable wmker, and n 1 went well until she was attacked by epileptic fits. Then began a course of barb .tons treatment, whi. h was a ided to in proportion as die became increasingly hephss. Efforts weie made by t'.e neighbors, and them was some slight interference by the authorities, to procure better trea'meat for the creature, but it was of no avail. Finally she was immured in a garret, a couple of tiles being removed to give the only light. After being four months immured there in indescribable filth, death put an end to her sufferings. She was found utterly emaciated, with a fractured knee, broken by her inhuman brother two months before. The sentence passed was six years' imprisonment for the man and five for the w r ife—wholly inadequate in public estimation for the horrors ot their conduct.