PARTICULARS OF THE LUNATIC ASYLUM TRAGEDY.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3814, 5 October 1883, Page 3

PARTICULARS OF THE LUNATIC ASYLUM TRAGEDY.

Auckland, This clay. The following particulars regarding the lunatic asylum tragedy havo transpired: — The occurrence happened, not in the cell, but in the day room in the cast end of the buildinjr, which, although it contained beds, is used as a breakfast and dining room for dangerous patients. Forty-two men usually dine in this room who cannot be trusted with a knife, fork, or spoon. They arc supplied with what is called spoon diet—that is to say, their potatoes are mashed and their meat chopped up. Owing to special instructions regarding Guschuell lie was tho last admitted into the breakfast room when all the others were seated. There were four attendants present at breakfast, and Hardy, the head warder, made a personal inspection at S o'clock and found all right. Guschnell was not even sitting at the same table with Mills. There was a table between them, and so far as could bo gathered no communication passed between them, and they sat at the extreme corners. The duty of the attendant, McAredy, who had charge of the ward, was to see tho ward cleared out, the patients sent into the dining court, and tho place locked up before he went to breakfast. He says ho cleared Mills and Guschnnll out with the other patients, and locked the place, but the difficulty is to reconcile this with the facts which occurred, and McAredy has been suspended pending tho result of the inquest Tho tragedy occurred in tho day room, which was supposed to be locked, and yet Mills and the Austrian must have been there. The assault was committed at the extreme end of tho ward in a passage six feet wide, on one side of which were the attendant's room, the outlet being to tho airing court. Guschnell apparently picked up a heavy deck scrubber broom used for scrubbing tho oilcloth in the passages, and following up his victim struck him violently on the back of the head, fracturing the skull, and smashing the brush off the handle. He then proceeded to belabor his victim with the handle. A patient named Edwin Jolly avers that he saw tho assault. He states distinctly that ho saw Guschnell break tho scrubber over Mills' head, and then belabour him with the handle. Guschnell, when asked why he attacked Mills, said it was to prevent swearing. He is quite coherent except when the conversation turns on his homicidal tendencies. The inquest on the. victim is now proceeding.