SHIP TRAGEDY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 284, 4 November 1925, Page 15

SHIP TRAGEDY.

ALLEGED DISPUTE. SCENE AT SOUTHAMPTON. LONDON, Oct. 22. ■ In connection with the tragedy on the C.P.R. Company’s liner Melita at Antwerp, it is alleged that the chief officer, Towers, Hew into a rage, leading to an altercation, when he shot Captain Clews. He accused Captain Clews and other officers of hindering his promotion. Captain Clews had a distinguished war-time career. The Melita has arrived at Southampton. Captain Clews’s body was landed, and the police arrested Towers. The C.P.R. Company states thaf the condition of David Gilmour, one of the wounded engineers, a New Zealander, is more hopeful. The bullet, which entered his face and lodged in his ear, will probably bo extracted today. Halliday, also injured in tho shooting, is improving. There was a strange scene at Southampton, where Towers, handcuffed to two policemen, stood calmly on the quayside while the seals on the captain’s cabin were broken, the body photographed and placed in a coffin, and the latter carried ashore covered with a Red Ensign. Towers raised his manacled hands in a salute to the coffin of his former chief;