in his own stable; he was clothed, and his hat was on the ground near him: it was obvious that he had been murdered; his clothes were neither torn nor stained with blood, but, on taking them off, upwards of forty wounds, which had been recently inflicted, were found on various parts of the body, and especially one on the back part of the head, which had fractured the skull, and probably occasioned im mediate death. The wife, on hear ing of the death of her husband, uttered the most violent screams and lamentations, and was not pacified without great difficulty. Suspicion, however, fell upon her, and a man of the name of Vauttier, who bore a very bad character. He was arrested, and some spots of blood were found on his clothes; being severely questioned, he became embarrassed, and at last confessed that he and the wife of the deceased had committed the murder. She at first denied the charge, but afterwards admitted its truth. According to their confessions, it appeared, that, about ten o'clock on the night of the murder, Vauttier called at the house of Lebaron, who was then in bed and asleep, and he there saw the female prisoner, who urged him to kill her husband, and promised him a large sum of money for so doing. Vauttier, armed with a heavy hammer, then struck Lebaron on the head, who, on rising from the bed, received a second blow on the head, which killed him. The wife cut his throat, and inflicted a great number of wounds on the body with a knife. When the body was on the ground, she jumped on it, and mutilated it in a most horrible and revolting manner. The wretches then drank a bottle of brandy; after which they clothed

the body and conveyed it to the stable, for the purpose of making it appear that the crime had been committed by strangers, and then endeavoured to erase all marks of blood from the chamber. The woman afterwards went to bed, and slept till late in the morning. On one of the labourers inquiring for his master, she observed, "that, after having fed the horses, she supposed he had gone to his father's, as she had not seen him." The body was shortly afterwards discovered by this man in the stable. Vauttier asserted, that, while drinking the brandy, and while the body of her murdered husband was before her, she remarked "the only thing that embarrassed her was, how she should be able to assume an appearance of grief on the morrow, and shed tears."

At the Assizes at Rouen, Maria Madeleine Delamere, aged fortythree, was tried for the murder of her husband. According to the evidence of the first witness, the brother of the deceased, as he was returning from his work at noon, on the 3rd of April last, heard the prisoner scream, and instantly went to his brother's house. He saw the deceased in bed, with his throat cut, and bleeding profusely. Witness asked his brother who had done it, but he made no answer or sign, and immediately afterwards died.

Deceased ap

peared always to have lived very happily with the prisoner. He had been ill for a long time, and witness imputed his death to his own hand, as he had been in great distress at not being able to attend to his work. The razor, with which the deceased's throat had been cut, was not found until the next day, when the police discovered it be

hind a cupboard, a few feet from the bed of the deceased. The prisoner did not appear much affected on hearing of the death of her husband. Other witnesses confirmed this testimony, and stated that the prisoner and deceased appeared to live very happily toge ther, and some of them thought that Delamere had cut his own throat. The Juge de Paix deposed d to his finding the razor; and, on his questioning the prisoner, she said, "Oh, Sir, do you wish to ruin me?" Several medical men were examined. The first, M. Despee, deposed, that he had seen the deceased previous to his death, and that he was then delirious. He thought that the wound had been inflicted by the hand of the deceased, and that, after having cut his throat, he had been able by a convulsive motion, to throw the razor to the situation in which it was found. Dr. Correa, a physician, who saw the body the next day, stated that there were three

distinct wounds in the neck. The

two first had been but of a slight nature, but the last wound was very deep, and had occasioned death. The wounds had been inflicted laterally on the neck, and one of the vertebræ had been cut in two places, in one place upwards of an inch in depth. He said that it was hardly credible that the deceased could have inflicted these wounds, but he would not declare that the deceased had been murdered. It would require great strength to inflict such wounds; he had tried to make parallel cuts in the neck of the dead body, but had not been able. Other medical gentlemen delivered similar opinions. In her defence, the prisoner said that she had been out of the room for five minutes, and, on her return, found her husband with his throat cut. She had screamed out, but she did not remember what followed, as she had fainted. The jury, after deliberating for a short time, acquitted the prisoner.