The Home Journal

Extraordinary Tragedy.

The following strange account of a tragical occurrence at Toulouse is published by the Paris Siecle, December 1: 'Two men, strangers to the place, applied three days back for permission to ascend to the top of the tower of the old Cordeliers Church, formerly used as a storehouse for fodder, and which was partly burned in 1871. Leave was granted; but shortly afterward the two men were seen to lean over the parapet, locked in each others arms, and then fall to the ground. One, who appeared to be the principal, and wore a decoration in his buttonhole, was taken up dead: the other was only stunned, and, on being carried to the hospital, made this extraordinary statement: The deceased, he said, was an engineer, and had formed with him a plan to rob the Bank of Toulouse by means of a subterranean passage leading to the cellars of that establishment, and which had been in course of construction for several months previously. The work was terminated and the plan was to be carried out an hour later. His accomplice then induced him to go to the top of the tower, on some pretext, and then suddenly seized him by the waist and endeavored to throw him from the top in order, no doubt, to obtain the whole of the booty. A struggle took place between them, in the course of which they both fell over as described. The cellars of the bank were visited, and the passage was found almost terminated; another hour's work, and it would have opened into the floor of the strong room.'