AUSTRALIAN.

Bruce Herald, Volume XXX, Issue 3038, 21 February 1899, Page 1

AUSTRALIAN.

While attempting to effect repairs to the safety valves of one of the boilers of the New Mount Zeehan mine, an escape of steam scalded to death Mr Hoakings (the manager) and a man named Edward Bowden. Several others were slightly injured. Stuart Briggs has been found guilty of the murder of Mißs Duth at Petersham in December last: The Judge, in sentencing him to death, said the evidence did not support the plea of insanity. In committing the crime accused was actuated by iealousy, and he was fully aware that he was doing wrong. The magisterial inquiry into the death of the boy Hill, the victim of the Oxley tragedy, has been opened. Wilson, the man arrested at Albany on a charge of committing an unnatural offence at Ipßwich, was placed in the witness box, and denied any connection i with the tragedy. Wilson's son, a crippled boy, eleven years of age, gave sensational evidence. Describing the journey from Ipßwich to Oxley, he stated that shortly before reaching Oxley they passed a boy riding a pie-* bald pony. Soon after his father left him in a sulky, and went into the bueh in the direction the boy on the pony had taken, and he then heard a shot. When his father rejoined him he said he had shot a hawk with the revolver he was carrying. After reaching Oxley the father changed his clothes. Hill's pony was piebald. Wilson's evidence is at variance with his eon's. He denied meeting a boy on a piebald pony, leaving his son, or carrying a revolver. The inquiry haa been adjourned sine die.