GLUE DISCOVERED

Evening Star, Issue 22618, 9 April 1937, Page 11

GLUE DISCOVERED

HENLEY FIRE TRAGEDY IDENTITY OF VICTIMS Through the following iip of the clue of a battered silver watch, the Dunedin police believe that they have established the identity of at least one of the two persons who, with James Reid, lost their lives in the fire which de-. stroyed a large wooden house at Henley on the night of March 6. At the tinie the inquest on the body of Reid was held it was disclosed that two other persons had been burned to death, but who they were seemed a mystery impossible to solve. "During the last month the policehave explored every possible source of information, but in each instance their inquiries proved resultless. It was not till they commenced to trace the ownership of a watch found in the debris! that their search gave an indication of being rewarded. Old and battered, the watch bore the number 282,896, and it was finally established that a jeweller in the city had repaired a watch with that number. Further in-' quiries elicited 1 the. information that it was the property of Jethro Hobbs, an elderly man, who, during the harvesting season, worked on different farms, in the Taieri. The facts so far in the possession of the police, therefore, point strongly to the probability that Hobbs was one of the victims of the fire. Information is now being sought by the police as to the whereabouts of Joseph Higgins, an old-age pensioner, 69 years of age, who was believed to have been in Hobbs’s company a few days before the fire, HigginSj who is oft 6in in height, is of medium build, has a grey moustache, grey eyes, a scar on the nose, and a mole on the right check. Inquiries are being made iu i Oamaru, where Higgins was last known.