SHOCKING FATALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume XXVIII, Issue 76, 2 April 1897, Page 3

SHOCKING FATALITY.

THREE PEOPLE DROWNED.

(BY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION),

Wellington, this day. Mrs Hope (wife of Mr Joseph W. Hope, a settler in Stokes Valley), her stepdaughter, and a little child, were found drowned in the llutt River. Mrs Hope had driven her husband to the railway station, on his way to Wellington, and was returning home .with her stepdaughter and child, when, it is supposed, the home jibbed and backed Iho cart into the river. Wellington, this day. Further particulars of the remarkable accident which rasulted in the drowning of three people in Hutu yesterday show that a passer-by noticed signs as if something hud jjono over the bank, and went down to look there. He saw the cart) overturned, nnd all three bodies pinned down by one wheel in about four feet of water. The horse was unhurb, and Was lying with hie hoad out of the water against the bank. The cart had scarcely a scratch, and the fatality in inexplicable, except on the supposition that the victims were stunned by the fall of about 20ft. All were quite dead, and probably had been there an hour before they were found. lb ia understood Mrs Hope did nob know much about driving, and, though bhere was evidently plenty of time to have jumped out of the cart, ifc is supposed that in frighb she clung tighter to the reins. She was driving borne aft the tiaie. The place where the accident occurred is on an incline in the gorge. The horse must have jibbed going up the hill, and backed over a steep bank. The husband, who had come to Wellington, knew nothing of what occurred till he opened the evening paper last night.