LAD SHOOTS HIMSELF.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 141, 12 June 1909, Page 3

LAD SHOOTS HIMSELF.

[PEBSS ASSOCIATION.]

ASHBTJRTON, June 11. A distressing . gun accident, which ended igjtally, 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.