News by Mail.

Inangahua Times, 28 October 1932, Page 4

News by Mail.

Hi* Last Voyage Died at His Dream Ship Arrived Darwin, Oct 16 " Old John,” well-know figure In Darwin’s “ Little China " for nearly half a century, Is dead. They burled him to-day. Just as his dream ship, upon which the Government had booked his passage to China, slipped his hawsers and steamed slowly East. "Old John” had waited so long for that ship—.his ship.—which was to have carried him from the burning suns of this northern outpost to his boyhood environment ” somewhere on the China coast.” “Old John,’ who left his native China back in the ’eighties, under an Australia Government railway construction scheme, was to be repatriated as ‘ aged and indigent.’ Long before his ship tied up he had packed his few belongings and was waiting at the wharf . . . waiting for his ship. Long before its blurred outline loomed through the early mornlrg haze, * Old John ’ had seen it out there, a phantom ahip, coming for him. Then a whistle sounded . . . the great bulk of 4 Old John’s ’ ship loomed closer, in all its steel reality . , . the ’skipper * shouted from the bridge to a wharfband ... a repe" hurtled'' from the deck.

4 Old John ’ watehed It all with bated breath. He was a little excited, certainly. But who wouldn’t be? Hie'ship had come. 4 Old John ’ forgot about his 4 luggage,’ and the little bundle fell from his loosened grasp to the wharf. He swayed a little, then fell in a crumpled heap. Men rushed to him. But * Old John * was dead.