WANGANUI SENSATION

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 27 March 1926, Page 5

WANGANUI SENSATION

TWO MEN DROWNED.

SOME EXTRAORDINARY FEATURES.

Further particulars show that the tragedy at the town wharf, when two men were drowned, was marked by extraordinary features. As yet the, identity of the, man : wilio made the tragic leap front the town bridge is not definitely established, but it is belioA-ed by the police'that his name Avas Alexander Mitchell, a horse trainer, AA'ho is missing and' Avhose sons are assisting in the search for the body. Mitchell AAias recently concerned in the Demure case, in" jvhick he claimed over £2OOO damages for alleged breach of contract in connection Avit&t a lease of a racing filly, Demure, and l his ca.se failed. Before noon Mitchell approached a man named Young at the oity end of the bridge, asking him for a piece of lead and a rope. Young asked whait they Avere for and Mitchell ©aid to catch a colt. Young complied, and Mitchell, saying “I’ll fix it,” departed across the bridge. Shortly afterwards a man assumed to be Mitchell climbed the parapet of a footbridge which runsl beside the traffic bridge and jumped twenty-five feet into the river. The only ones avlio saw this Avene some distance aAvay. • The man’s plight in the A\ r ater was! soon seen and three* men, William Hamilton, N. Rowe and A. Noyer, plunged in to assist. These'men were on the town AA'harf side and the drowning man AA-as on the far side of the river, so the rescuers had some distance to siAA’im. A strong ebb .tide was running and the Avater was A r ery cold. Neither the body of the man AA'ho jumped into the Avater , nor that of Hamilton Avas recoA-ered. ' Hamilton Avas a popular lad of 19, whose parents reside at Newtown, Wellington. A singular feature of the tragedy AA-as that it AA-aa enacted AA'ithin a stone’s throw of the busiest Dart of the city and over a hundred people, who quickly collected • on the bridge and AAihanf, watched Hamilton go. to hisl death in an effort to .save the man who leapt from the bridge. ' x '