AN EXTRAORDINARY CONFESSION.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3084, 6 January 1879, Page 1

AN EXTRAORDINARY CONFESSION.

' The Pioneer of Calcutta publishes a remarkable confession by a prisoner named Maitra, at the Lucknow Gaol, who lately procured the escape of a fellow* prisoner by means of a forged release warrant. In effect it is as follows:—" In June, 1868, when in Bombay with the 3rd PuDJaub Muleteer Corps, after its return from Abyssinia, I made the acquaintance of a young woman, a European, disguised as a Mahomedan. She told me that she had been carried off from Delhi during the mutiny' by a native x merchant, and hid finally been abandoned at Bombay. She told me her real name was Wilhelmina Rose. In September,- 1868, when my regiment Was ordered to Mooltan, this woman accompanied me. We went by steamer to Kurrachee, and by flotilla from thence to Mooltan. At Mooltaa the corps was disbanded. Wen went t» Lahore, and obtained employment in the D.P.W. Controller's office in March, 1869. We remained at Lahore until July, 1869, when I resigned my appointment, and we found our way back to Bombay. At Bombay we put up in the Byculla Hotel. We lired up stairs and occupied two rooms. Suspecting Wilhelmina of infidelity, I watched her* and one daj caught her with a visitor. A fit of jeP lousy seized me, and I determined to get rid of her. One evening, when sitting in our room as usual about nine p.m., drinking some brandy and water, I poisoned her. I mixed a drachm of aqim lauro-ceras and 10 to 15 grains of strychnine in her cup, and this. I gave her to drink in a tumbler one-third full of brandy and water. Nothing suspecting, she drank the brandy and water at one draught, and immediately retired to bed. I made my gel f drunk, and lay down and slept on the sofa in the sitting-room. The "next morning I found the woman dead. I went to the market and purchased a large wooden chest made of mango wood for srs. This I brought hack on the top of a gharry to the hotel, and had it taken up to my sitting-room. When, I was alone I placed the woman's,body into this chest,, and fastened... down the box. I then went to breakfast, and had the box replaced on the gharry. After breakfast I drove to the Boree Bunder, hired a boat, and was. rowed out of the Harbor. Four native boatmen rowed the boat. I bribed the boatmen with 25frs each—lOOfrs the four—threw the chest into the sea, returned to the hotel, sold off all Wilhelmina's things in the market, and left for Calcutta by a boat of the British. India SteamJSavigation Company. This was in the month of September, 1869. I make this confession so as to rid my conscience of a crime that has haunted me since thedaVl committed it." The magistrates at Lucknow are making inquiries to find out the truth of the story. It'does not' absolutely follow that Maitra has done what he says. He already expects transportation for life for various little matters in which he has been engaged He would not fear bang* ing on account of a murder committed a long time ago, and made the subject of a spontaneous confession. But he is a very ingenious person, and may think that if he were sent to Bombay to be tried for the murder, something might turn up to give a him chance of getting free.