HEAD OF THE LAKE.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Issue 2230, 14 October 1898, Page 5

HEAD OF THE LAKE.

(PkOM OCR OWN CORRESPONDENT). Glenoiuhv, Oct. 10th hsGS,

Considering too siz.- o! tuis d;v int an i ihsmall population, the nunrtr of acou-mr* that ha*e oecumd in thews pa.ts is iva!l> astonishing. Vet another name lias to be added t" the loug list by the accidental dtath of a miner named James Campbell, He had been only about a month in the district, and for the past fortnight had been working with a mate named Joe Kennedy in the Precipice ("r»-ek.

It appears that the wind had blown his hat off into the bed of the creek, and at about half past 2 on Weduesday afternoon he left the tunnel in which the two were working to make a search for it down the creek. As he did not return by evening his mate simply imagined that he had gone to get a letter which he was expecting by the mail that day. Even when night came on his mate did not feel at all uneasy, merely conjecturing that it was such a wretched night lie had stayed at a farm close at hand as he had done previously. When, however, there was no appearance of the deceased at his work on Thursday morning, Kennedy went down to the farm and found to his dismay that he had never been there. Realising that there must have been some accident, a party searched the creek, but unsuccessfully, no trace of the missing man being found. On Friday morning the search was resumed, and it was purely by accident that the liody was discovered. Naturally thinking that if there had heen a mishap, the body would be found in the bed of the cn-ek, the search party were devoting their attention principally to that part. To avoid going through a deep hole some of them climbed over a mass of rock, and there on the other side the body was quite unexpectedly discovered lying about tw euty feet above the creek, and about ten chains from the mouth of the gorge. The poor felow had evidently slid for about thirty feet down a sloping face of rock covered with a treacherous foothold of birch leaves, and then had fallen perpendicularly over the edge of a precipice about fifty feet high, death heing instantaneous. The deceased was only forty five years of age, but looked considerably older. Constable Bonner having ridden up from Queenstown, after the body had been carried down an inquest was held before Mr W. H. Valpy, J.P., aud the jury without retiring returned a verdict that the deceased met his death through accidentally falling over a precipice. Auother event which but recently cast a shade of gloom over the district was the sad end of Mr Thomas Plato. He was well known up here, having up till his departure for Queenstown, occupied "The Priory" farm. The school wan examined on the 3rd inst. by Mr Hendry with satisfactory results, only one pupil failing to secure the coveted advancement. For the present the school is closed, as the prevailing epidemic of measles has at last reached even these remote parts, and apparently is going to go right through the district.