WELLINGTON SHELLED.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1127, 15 May 1911, Page 4

WELLINGTON SHELLED.

BY THE VIRAGO FORTY YEARS , . .AGO. With reference to tho recent announcement that the ftgurehciul of 11.M.5. Virago had been secured for the Auckland Museum, it is not, puihups, generally known that this warship once shelled Wellington.. It happened forty-one years ago on a Saturday. afternoon. At that time it was usual for tho warship to indulge in gun practice in Wellington harbour, using live *bell. On the occasion referred to n ten-pound shell from one of the Virago's guns struck tho house of Mr. John Astill, Which stood ou Thorndon Quay on what is now the corner section at the Davis .Street intersection.

Mr. J. A ; . Astill, of the local ttaiF of the A.AI.P. Society, recalls the happening clearly. The house faced Tiiunuluu Quay, and the shell came from the direction of Oriental Bay, passed -through the neighbour's front fence and the dividingl'ence between the two houses. A largo fuchia-tres stood in the line of lire, and the missile levelled the tree. Then it struck the house just beneath the floorlevel, passing beneath till it encountered the solid wood-block which served as a step at the back-door. At the heavy iini>act the shell exploded, throwing tho block playfully over -the back fence in thu direction of Mr. Charles Johnston's house, about one hundred yards away. Tho block covered more than half the distance.

The effect on the house of the explosion was to .shake the whole structure severely, and smash every piece of glass and chinaware, though, strange to tell, none of tho five persons inside it were injured. Mr. Astill's mother and grandmother and two children were watching the warship at practico from the from window, ami liis sister was sitting on tho front step. The shell struck the house between theso points, fortunately low down. The escape of Hiss Astill was a matter of mere inches,' so far as being in tho road of the engine of destruction was concerned, though had the shell exploded when it hit the fences, the tree, or Clio house nothing would have remained of the party. Tho shooting of tho Virago was wild that Saturday afternoon, shell's landing in various parts .of Thorudon, one on 'tho old barrack-ground, where Fiteherbett Terrace is, and another near the old toll-gate at Kaiwarra, where the hulk of tho Oliver Lang lay. An inquiry was held, and tho cost of repairing the dam-aged-house was paid by the authorities, but no explanation ol die erratic shooting was given.