GUN PLAY

Evening Star, Issue 24116, 10 February 1942, Page 4

GUN PLAY

TWO M WOUNDED SEQUEL TQ FIGHT IN HOTEL LICENSEE ARRESTED

CP,A.) .CHRISTCHURCH, Peb. 10,

Two men were wounded at the Wataroa Hotel, South Westland, at 4,30 a.m. to-day. They were Thomas Walsh, single, aged 31 years, a farmer, residing at Wataroa, and Jack Peterson, single, aged 38 years, a labourer, also of Wataroa. John Morrissey, licensee of the Wataroa Hotel, a rtiarried man, with four children, and aged 36 years, surrendered to the police and was later charged before justices of the peace and remanded.

It is alleged that a heated argument ami fighting took place in the bote!, and Morrissey asserted that Peterson struck Itim with a sot of golf clubs. Walsh took Peterson outside, and it is claimed that Morrissey appeared on the verandah with a gun in his hand. A shot was fired, and Peterson fell. Walsh then felt a. shot, and ran to the store IQO.yds along the road, jumping through a window into the storekeeper’s bedroom. Peterson was lyi.ng on the road Morrissey called a doctor and then went to Constable Pawsey, informed him of the shooting, and gave himself up. The constable found Peterson on the side of the road, lying on the grass. Walsh suffered a shotgun wound on the left side of the abdomen below the rib. and Peterson suffered a shotgun wound through the muscle of the right arm, and a shot pellet wound on the right side. Wataroa is a village SO miles from Hokitika on the Main South road to the Glaciers.

Morrissey was charged before justices of the peace at Wataroa this morning Both wounded men were taken to Hokitika Hospital by air ambulance and arrived by 9 a.m. Blood transfusions were given, and both are expected to recover.

Walsh was saved from deatli by a bundle of papers which he had in his coat pocket.