ALLEGED "RAGING" AT TAIHAPE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume 9162, Issue 9162, 11 March 1910, Page 2

ALLEGED "RAGING" AT TAIHAPE.

A YOUNG MAN BADLY BURNED

What appears to have been an abominable ease of "ragging" occurred at Taihape 'in the early hours of Tuesday morning last, says the Wanganui Chronicle. Arthur Annabell, a young man of about nineteen years of ago, and a son of Mr John Annabell, of Wanganui, was the victim, and be is now an inmate of the Wanganui Hospital, suffering severely from the effects of the frightful ordeal through which he has passed. Young Annabell started work in the Taihape sheds about five or six weeks ago, and it is alleged that he has been subjected to systematic "ragging" of a more or less violent kind right up to the time of the outrage, which has sent him, badly burned, to a hospital bed. One of the "pleasantries" to which ho was treated, in the shape of a piece of iron or some other hard substance hurled at his head, left him with a disfiguring mark just above his nose, but he appears to have taken this as one of the "jokes" to which the "new chum" in the service

must perforce submit. "He came in to see us a few days ago," said his mother to a representative of the Chronicle, "and as soon as I saw him I noticed the mark on his face. He passed it off as the outcome of ' skylarking,' but we now know the kind of skylarking he has had to put up with." Mrs Annabell had just returned from a visit to the hospital, and she was naturally distressed at the condition in which she had found her son. "He is indeed badly burned," she said. "His arms and hands and face are in a , terrible condition, and it will be weeks before he will be fit to leave the hospital." _ "Yes," added Mr Annabell, " and it will be fortunate if he comes out without permanent disfigurement, even if there are not even more serious consequences." Asked as to the nature of the incident, which had resulted in his son's serious injury, Mr Annabell said that Arthur's story was that he had been at work throughout Monday night; he (Mr Annabell) had reason to believe that Arthur had been continuously on duty for 14 hours, and that early on Tuesday morning, while engaged in cleaning an engine, he must have fallen asleep. He was apparently lying down near the engine, and while in this condition waste, saturated with kerosene, was thrown over him and ignited. Startled into ! wakefulness, he did his best to free himself from the naming waste, but before he could do this he had been j frightfully burned about the arms, hands, and face. "And the men who were there and who saw the lad's terrible predicament, made no attempt to help him," added Mr Annabell, indignantly. "I am told that they merely stood by and sneered at him when he called to them for help, and that even when he pleaded with them to get him something to ease the terrible pain, they merely gave him some oil to rub on, leaving him to go, coatless and unaided, in search of a doctor, and that, too, on a frosty morning, when to be out in that condition must have been torture." As Mr Annabell very justly declared, men who would perpetrate an outrage like this are deserving of the severest punishment. If young Annabell's story is true, and hie sorry plight is not the result of accident, the act was little, short of fiendish, and might easily have had a fatal termination. On inquiry at the Hospital the Chronicle learned that the injured man was progressing as well as can be expected. Both arms and part of his face have been severely burnt, but his condition is not considered dangerous, although it will be some considerable time, if. all goes well and no serious symptoms intervene, _ before he is able to leave the Hospital.