SHOT BY A BAILIFF

Evening Star, Issue 14308, 5 March 1910, Page 8

SHOT BY A BAILIFF

A WELLINGTON - SENSATION. Pipitca street, Thorndvm (Wellington), was the scene of a tragedy just after six o’clock last, night, Christopher Dennis Smith, a, draper’s assistant, being shot dead by a bailiff named Robert Corkhill. It is'alleged that the deceased severely assaulted Corkhill, and two boys, who were slat tied eye-witnesses, state that Corkhill was seen to get up off the ground after a scuffle with Smith and then to tako aim, with the result that Smith fell dead, shot through the heart. The victim of the tragedy was a married man, whose wife lived in -Blenheim. He had been employed until recently by Messrs Warnock and Adkin, drapers, of Lambton quay, and boarded at 60 Pipitea street, the landlady being a Miss Smith. A few days ago Miss Smith gave up the place and went to Manakan. Another tenant was found for the house and furniture, and an attempt was made to take possesion, but it is alleged that Smith resisted and threatened violence. When the house • agents’ representative called on Thursday Smith ;ind some other boarders are said to have held the opinion that their week was up on Friday, and they could not he compelled to leave before that time. Therefore, the agents instructed a private baililf (Robert Corkhill) to take charge of the house on Thursday afternoon. Corkhill is sixty years of age. lie went to the house just after six o’clock and encountered Smith, who objected to leave. Smith, a well-built man of between thirtyfive and forty years of age, is alleged to have turned Corkhill out of the house and knocked him down on the concrete footpath in a narrow side entrance. Then the scuffle rapidly developed into a. tragedy. Smith, with his coat off and sleeves tucked up, watched the bailiff get up on his feet, and within a few seconds was staggering from the gain with a bullet wound in the chest. He died before ho could get back into the house. Corkhill, when ho got up, was seen holding a hand to his face as if he had been injured by the fall, and ho instantly whipped a small five-chambered revolver out of his hip pocket and took aim with fatal effect. ■ Everything occurred quietly, and the curious people who gathered scorned to scarcely realise that there had been a murder. Smith Jay on the concrete footpath of the house unattended. Ids arms stretched out and life gone, while Corkhill walked up and down the street in an agitated manner, fingering the revolver in his pocket. “ He seemed to he a man with a sense of having been treated unjustly,”, states an eye-witness of this strange scone, ‘‘and was more afraid of what the crowd might do than anything else.” CORKHILL ARRESTED. The police were present within a few minutes. Inspector Ellison, who lives not far away, being summoned by telephone. Corkhill, meanwhile, had tired of walking aimlessly backwards and forwards, and made for Molcsworth street and turned around the corner towards (he city and the Central Police .Station. Then a couple of onlookers seized him In* the arms and threw him to the ground. A five-chambered revolver of small pattern was taken from him, and found to hold four loaded cartridges and one which had been discharged. Ho was taken unresistingly to the Police Station, mumbling something incoherent about t he house in Pipitea street. He told the police that. Smith knocked him down. The body was examined by Dr Izard, who found that the bullet 'wound just, below the heart had quickly proved fatal. Detective Cameron and 'Constable Gallery removed the deceased to the Morgue. There was just a -small punctured wound to show where the bullet had entered, and there was very little external bleeding. The deceased, judging by the appearance of the body, was in the prime of life and in good health. , It is said that during the last few days he had been drinking. According to a fellow-boarder ho had served as a. sergeant-major in the b.-t South African War.