Medicine: Mercy Murder

A young grass widow, a middle-aged baron who was her father, and a preacher whom she made her confessor formally presented themselves before a Copenhagen magistrate last week. The young woman deposed herself to be Fru Else Wille Bang, 32, not domiciled with her husband since seven months after her marriage, for a period (after the separation) a student of singing in Paris, now of no occupation. She wished to impeach herself for the murder of her invalid mother, the Baroness von Dueben, and at the same time arrange for exculpation.

Denmark was startled by so naïve a culpa mea. The astounded...