[The following is a small excerpt from an article which appeared in Appleton’s Monthly on April 11, 1874. It was extracted from an article in the German publication Allgemeine Familien-Zeitung.]
It is related that two girls in the royal tobacco factory recently had killed each other in a hand-to-hand contest. The mode adopted by the combatants was as romantic as it was barbarous. The antagonists, who were both about twenty years old, and remarkably handsome, repaired, one Sunday morning, accompanied by certain of their comrades, to a village some four or five miles distant, where they breakfasted sumptuously at different tables. The repast ended, they closed the window-curtains, stripped themselves to the waist, and requested their friends to leave the room.
Then, at a given signal, they attacked each other with their navajas, and cut, and slashed, and thrust, until both fell to the floor, mortally wounded! When a few minutes had elapsed, their friends reentered the room. Estefania, one of the combatants, had received ten wounds, from which she bled to death in about half an hour. Casilda, her antagonist, died somewhat sooner, from a ghastly wound in the neck.
In this instance the authorities were less scrupulous than in the case of the two manolas. The participants in the horrid tragedy were arraigned and punished.
Source:
Stephens, John Richard. “Odds and Ends.” Weird History 101: Tales of Intrigue, Mayhem, and Outrageous Behavior. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. 141. Print.
No comments, yet...