A LUNATIC AT LARGE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXX, Issue 3594, 6 August 1912, Page 7

A LUNATIC AT LARGE.

DESPERATE STRUCCLE ACAINST THE ELEMENTS. PATHETIC STORY OF WOULD-BE ESCAPEE. [PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.] AUCKLAND, Aug. 5. Among the odd craft abroad on the harbor last night was a small punt being strenuously paddled through wind and waves by a mental hospital patient from Motuiti Island, who was making a bold bid for liberty. Just last week the pressure on the accommodation at the Avondale mental hospital was relieved by the transfer of 50 patients to Tokanui and 60 others to Motuiti Island, the old quarantine station in the harbor. Apparently the arrangements had not yet been made right, for late yesterday one of the patients, a vigorous young man, eluded his keepers and got away with a punt and paddles. His eye on mainland some four or five miles distant, all night he battled against the tide, his small craft twice swamping, and eventually in the early hours of this morning ho literally blew into St. H-ellier’s Bay with his hands cruelly blistered by the long fight to will across the four miles of stormswept water. . From his landing-point he made ins way to one of the southern suburbs where from a one-time friend lie heard that his wife was ill in the District Hospital. lie thereupon tramped through the rain to the hospital to see his wife. Meantime, news of Ins -escape had preceded him over the telephone wires, and when he presented himself drenched, dishevelled, and bleeding at the hospital the police were notified and lie was detained. He submitted quietly to the detention, and in due course was escorted back t-o the Avondale Mental Hospital.