LEFT FOR DEAD.

Auckland Star, Volume XLV, Issue 128, 30 May 1914, Page 17

LEFT FOR DEAD.

DRAMATIC SCENE IN COURT. A DOCTOR'S LOST IDENTITY. There was a dramatic scene in the Southampton Borongh Magistrate's Court recently In connection with a mysterious case of lost identity. Before the Court was an elderly man. a picturesque figure, with flowing hair. He was prosecuted for unlawfully causing to be inserted in the register of deaths a false entry, relating to the death or Emily Moore. The Tubllc Prosecutor, on whose behalf Mr. S. Pearce appeared, alleged that defendant, who practised as a doctor at Southampton in the name of Hugh Munroe Mcl-eod Mackenzie, was not that i person at all. There was only one person of that name on the medical register, aud he was now living at Uniondale, Cape Province. Defendant, said Mr. Pearce, came to Southampton a short time ago and sneceeded ln becoming a panel doAor. He stated that be bad lost his diplomas in a shipwrepek. Three witness said that defendant gave ihem death certificates. They had no cause to complain of his treatment. Miss Christian Elizabeth MacKenzie gave ! evidence, and said she was the sister of ■ the real Dr. Mackenzie, and was in Edinburgh at the time he qualified as a medical ' practitioner in 1891. The following year her brother went out to South Africa, and j had been there ever since. She identified I her brother's signature, and put in a letter ' recently received from him as evidence I that he was still at the Cape. "Is that your brother?" asked Mr Pearce, 'pointing to the defendant. ••N-o." was the emphatic "reply. •At this point, defendant, who had been showing obvious signs of illness and distress, rose to his feet and asked for an adjournment of the ease. "I was left for dead in the Boer war,"' he said huskily, "and it is only at times T remember about my own identity. I am a qualified medical man, but I am not in a fit condition to plead to-day. I am practically a dying man. I collapsed ontside the court. 1 don't know rep-ally who I am. and if I am not Dr. Mackenzie I should be only too glad if my identity could be proved," Mr. Pearce suggested that defendant should be examined by two medical men who were in court, but the magistrates decided to adjourn tbe case for a fortnight, defendant being admitted to bail on his own recognisances.