TRAGIC DEATH IN SYDNEY.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 148, 19 December 1907, Page 7

TRAGIC DEATH IN SYDNEY.

9 THE BOY BARLOW. By Telejrrfiph — Prccs Association. — CopyrlßU\ * SYDNEY, 18th December^ At tho inquest on the* boy Barlow, whose body, pierced in the region of the heart by a hat-pin, was found in the sea, an open verdict was returned. The medical evidence showed that death was duo to drowning. It was also stated that the hat-pin, though ''t had not pierced tho heart, had inserted during life, and that this could have been done by tho lad himself. Oswald Barlow was an intelligent boy, highly-strung, and of a temperament not often known to sway one of his years. By dint of close application to the practice necessary to qualify him to become a finished playar of instruments,, he gained considerable headway, and was, even at fourteen years, an accomplished member of tho State Military Band, but Devered his connection with it a fow months ago. It has been stated that he did not want to leavo the band. That fact, and the absence in Now Zealand of his brother, to whom ho was greatly attached, combined, perhaps, to induce tho despondency from which the deceased had been known to suffer "at times. Barlow was about to join Mr. L. D. Grocn's Vice-Regal Band on a day^ that had been appointed not long prior to his mysterious/disappearance. . The Sydney Daily Telegraph states that Dr. A. A. Palmer made an autopsy and ascertained that the pin took a slant downwards, and away from the vital organ. So that young Barlow's end came by drowning. He must have gone down to the foreshore of tho eastern suburbs after ho told his aunt that ho was going to Contenninl Park, and his body was washed north by tho southerly current which, along the coast near Manly, swirled inward more and more .is it ran its course, with the result that the remains wore drifting slowly to tho rocks when first seen. Barlow seemed to be very impatient for the return of his mother, when she went shopping in> the city on Thursday. His aunt, Cecelia Perrymnn, resides near the boy's -late residence in Leices-ter-street. Mrs. Ferryman was asked by tho boy every now and again when his mother would be honie. Ho left his aunt at half-past four, and that was the last seen of him. Teh fact that tho deceased was possessed of about lib. of short nails — almost tacks — padlock, lead, and type was not known to anybody. Senior j Sergeant Carson took the articles and the hair-pin to the parents, but they coulu not identify any of them. The type had been obtained by tho lad from a newspaper office when he, a schoolteacher, and a few other scholars were shown the working of the linotypo machine recently.