MOCK DUEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 249, 21 October 1933, Page 4 (Supplement)

MOCK DUEL.

PLAY ENDS IN DEATH. ITALIAN GIRL'S STILETTO. BOY FRIEND KILLED. Dramatic evidence of a stiletto fencing encounter wjs given at Heme Bay, London, at the inquest on Arthur Robert .Pearson (15), eon of a local licensee. Pearson was wounded at a charity fete while playing with an Italian girl of 19, Louise Fasciotti, who is in England to learn the language. The boy's father said the girl offered her blood for a transfusion. When told that the boy had died she fainted. Leslie K. J. Plowright (19) said Pearson took two stilettos from his pocket and handed one to Miss Fasciotti. They began to fence with them. Pearson suddenly stumbled towards the girl and cried out: "Good God." The girl said, in French: "What have I done?" Afterwards the girl told him sho thought the stiletto was a theatrical weapon, the blade of which disappeared into tho handle upon contact. Ho Lunged Forward. Miss Fasciotti, giving evidence, said she was with the boy and his sister and a friend at a cabin on the beach, and they threw stilettos at a wall like Red Indians. She met Pearson casually at the fete in the evening. Her gave her a stiletto, and took up the attitude of a swordsman. "I took up the same attitude," she continued, and "we crossed stilettos. We only played about in the air. I think it is impossible that my stiletto struck him, because I did not. feel any resistance against it. He moved his foot and lunged forward, and then ran away." The girl demonstrated how they held tho stilettos in air, and 6aid Pearson's upraised hand prevented her from inflicting

the wound. She thought he drew his stiletto towards himself. Dr. F. C. Cozens said the wound pointed to Pearson having accidentally stabbed himself. A verdict that the boy accidentally stabbed himself, and died from misadventure, was returned. Miss Fasciotti was exonerated.