ACCIDENTS AND TOTALITIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXIII, Issue 9090, 29 April 1890, Page 5

ACCIDENTS AND TOTALITIES.

[BY ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.—COPYRIGHT.} [Special to Press Association.] 1 Received April 28, at 12 30 p.m.l LONDON, April 27, At the enquiry into the circumstances connected with the explosion in the Morfa Colliery, the verdict was that the accident was due to a shot firing, and no blame was attached to anyone. NEW YORK, April 27. Congress has voted 150,000 dollars for the relief of the sufferers by the late heavy floods iu Missisaipi. SAN FRANCISCO. April 27. A violent shock of earthquake was felt here to-day. Considerable alarm was occasioned, but no accidents are reported. BRISBANE, April 21. The Marine Board has decided that the ill-fated steamer Quetta struck on an unknown rock. [Per Press Association.] MASTEETON, April 28. A boy named John Wright, two years o£ age, was accidentally drowned in the Waipawa river yesterday. WELLINGTON, April 28. A boy, named George Gordon was killed yesterday, through a, quantity of timber falling on him. A young man named Drysdale was violently thrown from his horse at Martinborough last night and instantly killed. NAPIER, April 2S. News was received last night of the discovery of the dead body of Mr Ernest Peter, on the bed of the Tutaekuri Eiver, below a cliff thirty feet high. Deceased is tile sou of the Hon W. S. Peter, of Ashburton, Canterbury, and was visiting Hawke’s Bay with the object of purchasing country property. He left town on April M, and was never since heard of till the discovery of his body. His horse was found on the 17th, tied to manuka scrub, some little distance off the road, about five miles from Fukctapu, which place deceased was seen to pass through. On Saturday last it was learnt that the horse had been found. The police were at once communicated with and search instituted, and the body was found yesterday. An inquest will be held this afternoon at Puketapu. [Mr Peter was in his boyhood a scholar at Christ’s College Grammar School. Afterwards he was well-known in cricketing circles iu Canterbury.] DUNEDIN, April 28. Leonard Chitty, sixty years of age, was found hanging in his own outhouse, near the Caversham railway station. He hud been seen about half an hour previously. Chitty also bought a quantity of laudanum, a bottle of which was found, nearly empty, in the outhouse where his body was found. He frequently quarrelled with his wife and family, and had threatened to take her life. A single man named William Alexander, a rabbiter at Rockland’s station. Deep Stream, is supposed to have committed suicide by drowning. He had returned from Dunedin, and appeared to be suffering from the effects of a drinking bout, but talked rationally. He was troubled with insomnia. He got up early on Sunday, and on search being made his body was found in Deep Stream, He is said to have a sister living in Wellington. [from our own correspondent.] ASHBURTON, April 28. Mr Joseph Clark, farmer and grain merchant, well known at Ivaiapoi and here, died early this morning. The news of the death of Mr Ernest Peter, the eldest son of the Hon W. S. Peter, which was circulated here this morning, caused much regret. Mr Ernest Peter had been managing his father’s property at Anama for some time, and was much respected and well liked. SERIOUS TRAM ACCIDENT. A serious accident, arising from the careless practice of jumping off trams in motion, occurred as the tram which leaves Sumner at 5.10 p.m. was coming up Lower High street last evening. A man named Barny Brown jumped off near the Caversham Hotel. He fell, and his right leg slipped under the car, one of the wheels of which passed over the limb, mangling it frightfully. Fortunately, there were on the tram two members of the St John Ambulance Association, who, as soon as Brown was pulled from under the car, bound up the injured limb with such skill that the bleeding was to a large extent stopped. There is little doubt that the sufferer owed the preservation of his life at the time to this prompt action. The ambulance stretcher was procured from the Fire Brigade station, and upon it Brown was conveyed to the Hospital. He arrived there shortly before seven o’clock, and examination showed that the injured limb was'so badly crushed that amputation at the hip joint was necessary. This operation was performed, and everything possible done for the patient, who was last night in a very weak state.

About twenty minutes before noon yesterday, when the Eev B. K. Otway’s trap was standing in front of Messrs Strange and Co.’s draper’s shop, the horse suddenly bolted. Mr Otway’s son, a lad, was in the trap, and tried to stop the horse, but unsuccessfully, and the animal dashed down High street to the corner of Tuam street, along that thoroughfare into Manchester street, and then along that street and High street to Cathedral square, where the trap came into collision with Mr Selwyn Davies’ express, and the runaway was stopped. Mr Otway’s trap was injured, but the lad escaped unhurt. Ho serious injury was done to the other vehicle.

A man named Henry Stevenson met with an accident while working at Mr Eosewarne’s eiaughteryards at the Styx yesterday afternoon. He was chasing a sheep when he fell and broke one of his legs. He was brought to the Hospital in the evening where the bone was set. Last night the sufferer was progressing favourably. The survivors from the wreck of the Etnilie —Gumming, Green and Meek—are not likely (says the Southland Times) to leave the Hospital for some little time, their feet being in a state that prevents their moving about. The sensation caused by the returning vitality to their feet is most peculiar. Meek suffering so much that he has to use a cradle to protect his limbs from the weight of the blankets.