FOOD DROWNED

Auckland Star, Volume XXVI, Issue 86, 20 April 1885, Page 2

FOOD DROWNED

An* olderly man named Charles Strong, one of tho local watermen, mot his death by drowning on Sunday morning under singular circumstances. About 10 a.m., a young man waE about to step from the breastwork, near tho watermen's steps, to the kotch Violet, when he observed tho body of a man floating botwoon tho vessol and the piles. Ho immediately informed Constable Maeky, of tho Water Police, and they very speedily had the body lifted into a boat. It was recognised as that of Charles Strong, and as life was extinct, the corpse was conveyed to the morgue. During tho evening Mr G. Lewis, brother-in-law of decoased, had tho body conveyed to his residence in Wakefield-street,'there to await an inquest. The strange circumstanco connoctod with this sad affair is that Strong must havo boon drowned not twenty yards away from where a dozen poreons wore congregated, while not one of them hoard the slightest disturbance which might indicate how the man got into the water. The most plausiblo surmise is that he fell from the breastwork, and that before roaching the water ho had beon rendered unconscious by coming in contact with the breastwork. James Smith, a watormon, states that a few minutes before 10 a.m. he awoke Strong in the watermen's house, and then went to look aftor his own boat. About eight minutes later he heard that Strong was drowned, and he cannot understand how this fatality could have happened within so short a period. Strong was a widower, and leaves no family. He was a brother to the caretakor of tho public baths, and a member of tho Foresters' Court, City of Auckland.