BABY SHOT DEAD

Auckland Star, Volume LIII, Issue 308, 29 December 1922, Page 5

BABY SHOT DEAD

BY T-YEAK-OLD PUYMATC SAD ACCIDENT AT SYDNEY. (From due Own CerresponOccLf SYDNEY, December 22. A slight, pale-faced child, aged seven, who sat in the Sydney Coroner's Court yesterday, was very interested in the policemen and the clicking of a typewriter. He did not realise the tragedy of the whole business. It wag he who had shot hie little playmate, aced ten months. But when he got into the wit-nese-box he sobbed pitifully. The awful ness of so many officials around him was too much for hie tiny mind. The story told in Court was that Mrs. Hawkins, the mother of the child, left the deceased in the washhouse at her bouse with a Mrs. Leman. .Mrs. Leman went upstairs, leaving dec-eased and her son George, who is ag«d eeven, playing in the diningroom. While upstairs she heard a report, and her stepfather call out "The baby is ehot!" She rushed downstairs, and found the baby lying on his face in tlie hall with blood flowing from a -wound in his head. George Leman was standing nearby, and he eaid "I could not help it." The revolver was the property of Harry Leman. who said that he had loaded it in one chamber, as he had seen a man the previous Saturday liangin? around his back gate. The revolver was placed in a wardrobe under some clothes. where be thought it would be handy if anyone was after his poultry. The coroner returned a verdict of accidental death.