A SAD TRAGEDY.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 2059, 4 August 1885, Page 2

A SAD TRAGEDY.

A dispatch from Lititz, Pennsylvania, onthelStKofMay, says:— "The full details of the suicide of Mrs Hiram Pfautss and her determined effort to drown her five children, show one of the most heroic efforts to save live on the part of her ten-year-old son, Harry, on record in this section of the State. The mother, who was the wife of a rich, farmer, and an educated woman, had becoma demented through religious matters. On Monday she wanted her seven children to go with .her to a mill dam a mile and a half away to gather flowers. The oldest did not go, the father being away from honje. Mrs Pfauti and her two sons, two daughters,- and a babe went, to the dam. The boy Harry led the way. They sat awhile neat the deep water, when Mrs Pfautz anted Harry to pick up a stiok near the dam. He stooped to do so, when the mother swiftly and' noiselessly rushed up behind him and pushed him in! She then rapidly seized the other three children and tossed them in one by one, and then jumpod in herself, babe in arras. Harry, an expert swimmer,

soon-got out, and. hauled his-brother, aged seven, who clung to:'a ashore. Harry. ..ijlien jumped in aiff; safely brought his sister,- ; agied' nineX ashore, Nothing-daunted, lie once more plunged in and grasped his mo'ther, who . still held tlie babe. The mother, exclaimed she wanted to die, but ■ the boy bravely held on, and begged her not to resist. By almost- superhuman efforts he suceeded in getting- yj. the mother and babe safely out of the Bft ' of water'to the 'shore. Metawhile the ' : other children stood speechless on the bank. The next moment Harry dived in for 1 his three-year-old sister; who had sunk the third time. Harry found the body at the first dive, and brought it up .' and on to the bank, closely pressing the little onetohis breast; Heat once rolled the\ body on the ground, but finally burst y into tears when he realised that his * little sister was dead. >His 'mother, who stood shivering' on the bank, with the wet children, implored Harry to run back to the farm.to get a waggon to bring them home. Suspecting his mother, he implored hor not to do anything rash, She promised not to; but the boy concluded to take the three : children back with him, leaving the mother and babe alive with the dead child. The three children went home in their-wet clothes, and there told the horrified father what had occurred. He quickly ■ drova to scene, but there found no one. aft moment that' Harry and the chilaSn had gone the mother siezed the dead child and her babe, and again leaped into the water, never to rise again." V.