Alexandria Gazette & Advertiser

From a late London paper.

SINGULAR DISCOVERY OF A MURDER.

Extract of a letter from Novogorod—

"What I am going to relate to you might almost pass rather for the fiction of some idle brain, than for a real event, and yet the truth of it is well known and attested by respectable authority. A nobleman in this province being out hunting with several other noblemen, perceived in a forest a bear, with a muzzle on, tied to a tree; the animal appeared to be very tame, and by his wailing indicated that something particular was the matter with him. The nobleman gave orders to untie him from the tree, on which the bear led by a countryman with a rope, immediately ran to a neighboring spot, and began very eagerly to scratch up the earth; the creature only wanted language to show that something, which nearly concerned him, was here buried. The possibility of this was evident to the nobleman, and he ordered his people to dig up the spot pointed out by the bear, which consisted of very loose earth. To the no little astonishment and horror of all present, they soon found two bodies covered with blood, which appeared to have been very recently interred, whose wounds the bear, with a lamentable howling, began to lick. They made a bier of young trees, on which they laid the bodies to convey them to the next village.

The bear, still led by a peasant, goes first, and seems to follow like a dog, a scent that he has of the murderers of his masters. He is suffered to take his own way, and they soon reached a village on the skirts of the forest, when he halts at the door of a cottage, and his former wailing is changed to a dreadful roaring: This induces the nobleman to call together the male inhabitants, and place them in a certain order, thinking, perhaps, by the help of the bear, to discover the murderers, as of course all deny any knowledge of the deed. The people belonging to the hut before which the bear stopped, also came up from another side, and scarcely had they, according to the nobleman's desire, placed themselves with the others, when the bear, with a dreadful howl, rushed upon two tall fellows, whom only the animal's muzzle saved from his fury. He was removed from them by force, but the persons so singularly accused, were immediately subjected to a strict examination. They confessed all; the two bear leaders, who had money about them, had been murdered by them in the forest, and hastily buried; the hunting horn of the party having made them fly precipitately, leaving the bear tied to the tree, by which the discovery of the murder was effected in a manner almost incredible, and the criminals were delivered into the hands of justice, and will be brought to the punishment which they so justly deserve."