ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXI, Issue 13326, 4 January 1904, Page 5

ACCIDENTS AND FATALITIES.

[Per Press Association.] . NAPIER, January 2. Tliree young were drowned in the Petane River this ihorning. Their'names are Elizabeth Connor, Olivet Coker' and Madeline Christy. From the meagre particulars at present available"' it seems that a picnic party of ten persons, including the three deceased ladies, left in an express this morning for Tougoia, and when crossing the Petane River, which was considerably swollen by yesterday’s heavy rain, the express capsized, it is supposed through getting in a hole or a. quicksand. The stream was running pretty strong, and though several were fortunate enough to scramble ashore, others were carried down, the ladies named being drowned before assistance could bo rendered. One of the homes attached to the express was also drowned. All the deceased were Napier-born, and great sympathy is felt for their relatives. PALMERSTON NORTH, January 2. The body of a domestic servant, named Kate Hill, aged twenty, employed at Stoncy Creek, who has been missing since Wednesday night, whs found in the Manawatu River by the police yesterday. The deceased appeared to be in her usual health when last seen on Wednesday night. WELLINGTON, January 2. A seaman named M’Donald has been admitted to the hospital, suffering from several knife wounds. A fellow-seaman, named Jellamar, has been arrested and charged with inflicting the injuries. It is said that a fight occurred between the two men, who belong to the steamer Indradevi. M’Donald is not dangerously injured. INVERCARGILL, January 3. On the Riverton line on (Friday, a casual surfaceman named Brooklaud was eo badly injured that he is likely to die. He was on a railway velocipede, making for his home at Thornbury, and sitting with his bade in the direction he was travelling, when the Nightcaps train ran into him, and he was thrown aside with great violence and injured internally. George Hall, a bootmaker, committed suicide in the back room of his father’s shop in Dee Street during New Year’s night by inhaling, coal gas. He had been in. ill-health for a year. The act was dons with great deliberation. Hall put a robber pip© on the gas jet, bag over his head, introduced the other end of the tube, tied the bag and lay down on the floor with the gas turned on.