SOME OF THE VICTIMS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 20, 24 January 1924, Page 6

SOME OF THE VICTIMS

A PITIABLE SIGHT.

(Received 24th January, noon.)

MELBOURNE, Thi s Day. F. W. M'llwine, of Toorak, one of the victims fatajly shot by the madman, was aged 65. He 'recently arrived from Ireland. The list of dead includes Mabel Podbury, aged 30, a housemaid employed at Hawthorn.

At the first sound the shots in the Gardens excited little attention, as it was surmised that the gardeners were shooting waterfowl, but when a man rushed about, shouting: "Someone is shot!" a hue and cry was raised, and the gardeners and attendants and the public rushed to the scene, which presented a pitiable sight. ■ ■' ' • ;

One man, seriously wounded, lay prostrate on the ground, surrounded by hor-ror-stricken children. A little further away a man and a woman were lying face down on the grass, apparently dead. Another woman was knitting when attacked, and lay dead with her work in her hands. Another was outstretched on the lawn. , '

The head 'gardener, St. John, said he' was in the backyard when he heard the shots. _He guessed immediately that something was wrong, and rushed to the vicinity. He reports that he was confronted with the spectacle described. A constable approached him, saying: "For God's sake, get a gun. There is a madman in the gardens." He secured a gun and searched with his son all the shrubberies and undergrowth about the- gardens till midnight, but failed to locate the lunatic, who is still uncaptured.'