THE EAST EYRETON TRAGEDY.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 11006, 2 July 1901, Page 5

THE EAST EYRETON TRAGEDY.

A PECULIAR COINCIDENCE. tß*f_CT__ TO "THB* J*RBSS.") 1. Mr D. Mason, of Wa'ihohv, relates a peculiar coincidence. He states that a man answering to tl>3 description of M'Lean, now under arrest jn cam-iection; with the Syreton murder, and be_ii|ng .t|e iame name, came "swagging" to his'place in 1899, and was given employment by him. Mr Mason placed M'Lean to some, ditching work, and in the-performance o-.-Uda M'Lean cut his foot severely near the toe with the spade. After this Mason noticed 'symptoms of strangeness about M'Lean. The man refused bis food, and when reUMnstrited "with threatened to drown himself. Mason persuaded M*_e*n to return to, Jas work, but tho latter repeated ; to him'that'lie thought it would be better that he were out of the world., and said that when his nts,came he had no control over himself. He also told Mason that on one occasion he had wandered away from a relative's place in AttstraJUa, and that when he came to himself he was « haadred moles away from it.

Our Ashburton correspondent writes:— —Many statements (not a few of which are entirely supposititious) have been made with reference to tho movements of the man McLean. 1 " I have' it ' on*unq_estionable authority that he slept at Ofent Hills .Station on Tuesday night, and bad dinner at the?Mbant J Possession Station on Wednesday. At Mount Possession he gave 10s for a *brid_> to replace "ope he had broken. From there he must have come down through the Gorge to Mount Somen-, through Mayfleld to Vatetta, where he stole a. coat, and from Valetta down to Lagan's

Hotel. dent Hills Station and Mount Possession Station are both away back up the Ashburton Gorge, and Mc__-_a.c-o-jld easily have made his way a_t_ss from either Spnngfleld or Whitecliffs in the db-ectkro of tbe Rakaia Gorge, and thence on to Dc_bj*HiU Station, (Son* B___> or Mount Possession. "