NEW CALEDONIAN SENSATIONS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2000, 27 May 1885, Page 2

NEW CALEDONIAN SENSATIONS.

At last advices some little stir had been created in Noumea-by the sudden disappearanceof a well-known merchant, whose . name is only indicated by the letter D. '"''" He took his departure for Auckland in • the barque Fanny Thornton, without even apprising his wife of his intention. He is understood to be heavily indebted & to various mercantile firms in' the place, \ where he has hitherto borne a good character, and enjoyed plenty of credit. A convict named Perrot, who had been transported for life for having killed his.. own father, has just been sentenced to death by the military tribunal on a charge ": of having murdered a fellow-convict named Bataille. The two men had planned imou from the prison, an& had succeeded in filing the irons witlPr which they were heavily manacled, but they were baffled in the attempt. Ac.cordingtothesomewhatdubiousteatiinony of some of the other prisoners, Bataille and Perrot had a quarrel after the failure of their plans, and drawing a butcher's knife, "whichhe always wore attaohed tehisbelt(!)" the former flung himself ■ upon the latter, exclaiming, "Since 1 cannot avenge upon the warder Gadoffre, I will avenge myself on thee." Perrot then disarmed his assailant, and stabbed him several times with the weapon; but as Bataille was a man of Herculean strength the story is discredited; The first blow struck Perrot's victim to the heart, when he fell crying for mercy. The blows were repeated/, four or five times in the same place, whilf'A the rest of the convicts looked placidly on, as they are accustomed to do oii all such 'i occasions. When the man was dead they ■"." raised a cry of help; and oh two warders . "..' presenting themselves, Perrot proudly avowed himself to be the murderer, and gave up the knife, the point'of which was found to \\m been turned by coining in contact with one of the vertebrae of the murdered man. At the present time, it appeal's, there are twenty men con--demned to death in the penal establishments of New Caledonia, whose sentences • have not been executed, in oonsequeneo & of President Grevy's conscientious ™ scruplea,