A BUSH TRAGEDY.

Evening Star, Issue 10182, 8 December 1896, Page 2

A BUSH TRAGEDY.

A cablegram a few days ago reported that a young Victorian had shot himself by striking at a snake with the butt of his gun, and that he lay two days in the bush before he was found. The following are further particulars of the accident and its horrible consequences :

The youth, whose name was Morkham, aged fifteen, went out shooting with a doublebarrelled gun, accompanied by a collie. This was at mid-day on Sunday. The manager of the farm returned home late, and supposed the hoy had gone to bed. Rising at five o’clock on Monday morning the manager became uneasy at the absence of the collie, and burst the door of the boy’s room, only to find the bed had not been slept in. Thoroughly alarmed by this time, Mr Walker hurried out and whistled his usual call. A few moments afterwards the collie came up at a gallop, but approaching its master the animal whined plaintively, running forward and then back again, with an evident desire that the man should follow it. Mr Walker acceded to the mute entreaties of the animal, and the collie led him across the creek, and about a mile away from the homestead, to the spot where the hapless youth lay bathed in blood. According to the account which the medical men pieced together little by little from the disjointed phrases of their unfortunate patient, it seems that young Morkham was tramping on through the thick scrub, when he happened to look down and saw, to his horror, a large tiger snake, active and menacing, right between his legs. Recognising with the speed of thought that it was a moment for instant action, young Morkham slid his hand from the stock of the gun, grasped it firmly by the barrels, and dashed the heavy stock with all his force upon the body of the tiger snake. As the stock of the gun struck the ground, while the barrels pointed upwards at an angle towards the boy, both triggers fell, and-a .double charge of heavy shot struck the boy on the inside of the thigh. So close was the range that both charges passed clean through the thigh, shattering the bone and cutting a gory passage from the inside to the outside of the leg. Young Morkham sank down in his blood and never moved again for twenty-six hours. It is a well-known phenomenon in gunshot wounds that the sudden depletion of the moisture of the body by great loss of blood produces an instantaneous and intolerable thirst. Yet no hand was near to hold a cup of water to the lad’s lips as he lay alone in the trackless solitude of the bush. And the thermometer at the time was 9odeg in the shade. The terrible day dragged on, and the night, more terrible still, came in with no trace of coming coolness, and the dreadful thirst always increasing as hour succeeded hour. Young Morkham never lost consciousness ; he was never for a moment liberated from torture by welcome insensibility. When the sun

rose next day it found him lying in the same position, saturated with blood and consumed with the flames of raging thirst. The snn climbed np in the heavens, and at high noon the boy was still there, moaning. It was not till 2 p.m. that the dog led Mr Walker to the spot. The rest is soon told. Young Morkham was lifted up carefully and carried to the homestead. By this time the wounds were in a fearful condition, and Mr Ryan, who was sent for, considered that the survival of the boy for so long under such horrible suffering was little short of marvellous. From the first the case was almost hopeless, and he died towards evening.