LAD SHOOTS HIMSELF.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 140, 11 June 1909, Page 8

LAD SHOOTS HIMSELF.

[PRESS ASSOCIATION.] ASHBURTON, June 11. A distressing gun accident, which ended fatally, occurred at • Mitcham yesterday afternoon, the victim being a. lad 17 years of age named. John Booth, a blacksmith's apprentice. It appears that Booth was in the act of shooting fowls with a breechloading gun, and being - anxious to save the last cartridge, which was in the gun with the hammers up, he picked up a stone to hurl at the fowls which were on the roof of a shed, when the gun accidentally exploded and the full charge entered his right side. The lad was taken to the Ashburton hospital, where he died at three o'clock this morning.