BURNED IN WHARE

Auckland Star, Issue 111, 13 May 1935, Page 3

BURNED IN WHARE

MAORI BOY'S DEATH

FATHER'S GRAPHIC STORY. ENTRANCE THROUGH WALL. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) TIC KUITI, tliis clay. An inquest was held to-day before Mr. K. M. Somerville, coroner, concerning the death of Neriliana Tapu, the scvcn-year-okl Maori boy who was burned in a wliaro at Tiroa, Mangapeehi, on Thursday last. Kakenga Ivingi, a bushman, the foster father of deceased, deposed that NeriJiana and another boy, aged five, were put to bod by their mother at nine o'clock. lie and the mother occupied the cookhouse twelve feet distant with two other children. He was awakened at eleven and found the whare enveloped in flames. He saw the younger lad outside. On endeavouring to enter by the door witness was driven back by flames, but he forced an entrance through the wall. Deceased staggered out wrapped in a blanket. Camphorated oil was applied to his burns. The lad (lid not cry or complain of pain, but repeatedly asked his mother to give him water. A doctor was summoned from To Kuiti. At (i.30 the following morning the lad suddenly sank and died at 9.30. Both lads occupied the same bed, beside which a sewing machine stood with a hurricane kerosene lamp burning thereon. James Galbraith, bush manager, deposed that there was a large lire in the cookhouse owing to the exceedingly cold night, and it was possible that a spark might have set fire to the whare. A verdict of accidental death from shock, following burns, was returned by the coroner.